Understanding Purpose of Law: Characteristics and Elements
Understanding the Purpose of Law
Key Characteristics of Law
- Generality: Law applies universally, not to specific individuals.
- Imperative: Law commands actions and prohibits others, without suggestion or invitation.
- Alterity: Law governs relationships between two or more parties, existing within society. Law and society are interconnected; one cannot exist without the other.
- Coercibility: Law can be enforced by force if necessary.
Characteristics of Fundamental Rights
Human rights are subjective rights exercised against the State, differing from subjective rights exercised against individuals.
- Inalienable: Rights are neither acquired nor lost over time.
- Non-transferable: Rights cannot be transferred to another holder.
- Indispensable: Rights cannot be waived by the holder.
- Universal: All individuals possess these rights, ensuring basic legal equality.
While sometimes considered absolute, modern doctrine recognizes that the exercise of these rights is subject to limits such as public policy, welfare, and the rights of others.
Elements of Subjective Rights
Authority or Power
Rights represent a faculty or power, a possibility of action for the subject. This power is not exclusive to the state but is embodied in individuals through subjective rights.
Obligation
The exercise of power requires at least two subjects. This legal duty may involve performing an action or refraining from one.
Legislation
Subjective right is defined as the power conferred by the rule to require a subject of another or others as a particular conduct and behavior of abstention or impairment .
Content of Law
The content of law includes enjoyment and the claim. Enjoyment is the internal perspective of legal right, whereas the claim relates to its external projection.
Classes of Subjective Rights
- Real rights are projected onto things (res), the subject is bound undetermined.
- In obligational rights, the person who is responsible for the law duty is determined.
Another classification serves the criterion of the degree of intervention of the will of the holder on the right:
- Rights of freedom, in which the will of the owner has little relevance.
- Rights of claim in which the will of the owner is crucial.
- Rights of legal change in the will of the holder reaches the maximum.