Lecture1.

Introduction to law
Department Humanities
Content of lecture

1. The concept of science of law and its structure.

2. General issues of state and law:
-the concept and functions of the state.
-the concept of law, types, principles and function of law.
3. Objects and subjects of legal relations.
4. The concept and meaning of legal liability.
5. Types of legal liability in the field of healthcare.
6. The concept, subject and methods of medical law.
7. The subjects of medical law.
8. The concept of international law.
9. The right to health in international law.
10. The main international legal documents in the field of
health.
Science of law = Jurisprudence =
Philosophy of Law

 What is Jurisprudence?
 There is no universal or uniform definition of
Jurisprudence.
 Law has been created to organize human behavior. With
the legislation, the regulator has established rules whose
observance should be beneficial for people themselves and
whose violation is followed by punishment.
 Jurisprudence - Latin word “Juris prudentia”- Legal
Knowledge.
Jurisprudence is composed of separate legal sciences,
which can be divided into the following types:
1) general theoretical sciences (common theory of law
and theory of the state);
2) historical and legal sciences (the history of law and
the state, the history of the doctrines of law and the state);
 3) sciences that study separate branches of law (civil,
administrative, criminal and other branches of law);
4) sciences that study international law (international
public law and international private law);
5) applied (special) legal sciences of a comprehensive
nature (forensic science, forensic statistics, forensic medicine,
forensic psychiatry, etc.);
6) sciences studying law of foreign countries (Roman law,
constitutional law, etc.).
 Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) was an
English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as
the founder of modern utilitarianism.
 John Austin (1790 – 1859) was an English legal theorist,
who influenced British and American law with his
analytical approach to jurisprudence and his theory of legal
positivism.
Definitions of Law by:

 1. T.E. Holland (1835 –1926) was a British jurist.

 2. J.W. Salmond (1862 –1924) was a legal scholar, public
servant and judge.
 3. R.E. Keeton (1919 – 2007) was an American
lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar.
 4. N.R. Pound (1870 –1964) was a distinguished American
legal scholar and educator
 5. R.W.M. Dias (1921 – 2009) was an academic and author
of leading works on jurisprudence.
Relationship of Jurisprudence
with other Social Sciences

1. Sociology and Jurisprudence

2. Jurisprudence and Psychology
3. Jurisprudence and Ethics
4. Jurisprudence and Economics
5. Jurisprudence and History
6. Jurisprudence and Politics
Significance and utility of the study of
Jurisprudence

1. It trains the critical capacities of the mind of the students so

that they can be avoid mistakes and use accurate legal
terminology and expression.
2. The study of jurisprudence helps to put law in its proper
context by considering the needs of the society and by taking
note of the advances in related and relevant disciplines.
3. Jurisprudence can teach the people to look if not forward, at
least indirectly and realize that answers to a new legal problem
must be found by a consideration of present social needs.
Concept of Law

 Law is a means of social control that sets certain

restrictions on the members of the human society by the
state, controlling people’s absolute freedom – it allows
only certain kind of behavior in some cases and not
another.
 Law does not just create binding prohibitions, but also
justifications for people to behave in certain ways (lawful
behavior).
 Law is not something that could be external to the society.
 Law functions in a social environment, developing and
changing, adapting to the social circumstances.
Law as a phenomenon is characterized by
a number of factors

 Law is a collection of rules of conduct of a general nature.

 Law formally covers all individuals who are in the
jurisdiction of the law.
 The rules of conduct are addressed to all persons.
 The system of legal provisions has been created on the
basis of certain principles.
 Legal provisions have been systematically brought
together in legislation, branches and sub-branches of law.
 The creator of legal provisions is a competent institution
(e.g. the parliament).
 The state must ultimately ensure that the law is observed.
In case of non-observance, it is guaranteed by means of
state coercion. If a legal provision is not guaranteed by
means of state coercion, it is not a legal provision but
rather a moral precept, for example.
 Legal provisions are based on a legal obligation, the
fulfillment of which is ensured for everybody by state
coercion.
What ensures that the law is effective?

 Given that the law consists in general rules of conduct, a legal

provision is intended for all people.
 The state must create effective rules for people to follow them
and subject their behavior to them.
 That means, on the one hand, that the observance of legal
provisions must be guaranteed by means of appropriate
sanctions.
 People should feel that acting in accordance with rules is more
beneficial for them than unlawful behavior.
 On the other hand, legal provisions must also conform to the
general logic of life, so that they would be possible and
reasonable to follow.
Legal provisions can be categorized by
their purpose

 Regulative legal provisions are directed at regulating a social

relationship. Such provisions either allow some kind of activity,
prohibit it, or obligate people to do something.
 Defensive legal provisions establish legal responsibility and
regulate the use of the state’s defensive measures (coercive
measures).
 A legal provision establishes the restrictions to the behavior of a
person subjected to it by defining the person’s rights and
obligations. If the respective obligations are ignored or violated,
sanctions are applied toward the persons at fault. By means of a
sanction, the state ensures the effectiveness of the legal provision.
 A sanction is a punishment applied to the person violating
the rule. Such sanctions include, for example, the revocation
of a special right, a fine, detention, imprisonment, or the
compulsory dissolution of a legal person.
 Sanctions, however, are not an end in themselves – their
purpose is to influence people to behave in lawful manner,
and therefore they serve their purpose best when it is not
necessary to apply them.
 Sanctions can be categorized by the nature of the coercive
measures applied and by the bodies applying them. One can,
for example, distinguish between penal, administrative and
disciplinary sanctions.
Subjects of legal relations

 Legal relation – relation between subjects based on legal

facts included in legal norms, subjects have rights and
duties.
 Prerequisites of legal relations - legal norms and legal facts
 Components of legal relations:
 Subject of legal relations
 Object of legal relations
 Content of legal relations
Subject of Law

 A person – physical or juridical – who in law has capacity

to realize rights and juridical duties.
 The subject of law is a necessary element of legal relations
in all branches of the law, although its status is specific in
each such branch.
Object of Law

 Social relationships which, in given socioeconomic and

political conditions, are subject to legal relations.
 Political, labor, economic and other relationships are
objects of law.
 The term “object of law” also denotes things (objects) that
give rise to social relations regulated by particular branch
of law.
Legal liability

 Liability one of the most significant words in the field of

law, liability means legal responsibility for one's acts or
omissions.
 Legal liability generally refers to the compulsory and
adverse legal consequences assumed by the people for
their illegal acts. Legal liability is closely linked with
illegal acts.
 They have a causal relationship. There would be no legal
liability without illegal act. Only legal persons and
organizations who have conducted illegal acts would
assume corresponding legal consequences, i.e., legal
liabilities.
 The main features of legal liability includes: first, there
must be clear and specific requirements and regulations in
law; second, there must be coercive force of the state to
guarantee the realization of legal liability; and third, there
must be statutory state organs to investigate, affix legal
liabilities, and implement legal sanctions in accordance
with the law.
 No other organizations or individuals have the right to
exercise the power.
Civil liability

 Civil liability is potential responsibility for payment of

damages or other court-enforcement in a lawsuit, as
distinguished from other type of liabilities.
Criminal liability

 Criminal liability is a type of legal liability for violation

of the criminal law.
 Instituting criminal proceeding means initiating a criminal
case, investigating it, and then considering it in court. The
procedure for the investigation and court hearing of a
criminal case is regulated by the legal norms of criminal
procedural law.
 The execution of a court’s guilty verdict – the actual
realization of criminal liability – is governed by the legal
norms of criminal executive law.
Administrative liability

 Administrative liability is applied by state executive

bodies, as well as local authorities as measures of influence
against perpetrators.
 The main legal act is the Code on the offenses. As part of
administrative responsibility, they distinguish between
administrative and financial, tax, and other responsibilities
(administrative arrest, fines, compulsory work).
Concept of state

 According to one definition, a state is a community

formed by people and exercising permanent power within
a specified territory.
 According to international law, a state is typically defined
as being based on the 1933 Montevideo Convention.
According to Article 1 of the Convention, the state as a
person of international law should possess the following
qualifications:
1. Permanent population
2. Defined territory
3. Government
4. Capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
 Among branches of law, two major fields can be distinguished:
private law and public law. The difference between these two
branches lies mainly in the parties of the legal relationship in
question.
 Private law signifies rules that regulate the relationships between
private individuals (subjects of law who are, legally speaking, in
an equal situation; for example, the legal relationship between a
buyer and a seller, where both parties have certain rights and
obligations).
 Private law covers civil law, commercial law, international
private law as well as intellectual property (such as copyright,
patent law).
What is Medical Law?

 Medical law is the body of laws concerning the rights and

responsibilities of medical professionals and their patients.
The main areas of focus for medical law include
confidentiality, negligence and other torts related to
medical treatment (especially medical malpractice), and
criminal law and ethics.
 Medical law is the branch of law that deals with the
application of medical knowledge to legal problems.
 Medical law covers an area of regulations relating to the
medical operations, the industry operators, the procedures
involved in the medical operations, characteristics of
medical experts performing medical operations, as well as
the relations that occurred while performing medical
activities.
 Medical law finds its utility in relation to patients’ health,
such as: life, body integrity, health, self-determination, as
well as personal dignity.
Health law = Health care

 Health law regulates a wide area of activities, not only

medical activities, but also the procedures that are being
implemented, the need and necessity of the procedure,
professionals who carry out the procedure, covers a wide
area of regulations concerning health, procedural matters
and organization of the public health system.
 Health care is a wider discipline that concerns all legal
acts to human health. Covers the area of procedures,
patients, doctors, informed consent and fact that matters to
human health.
International Law

 International law is a system of treaties and agreements

between nations that governs how nations interact with
other nations, citizens of other nations, and businesses of
other nations.
 International law typically falls into two different
categories:
 Private international law deals with controversies
between private entities, such as people or corporations,
which have a significant relationship to more than one
nation.
 Public international law concerns the relationships
between nations.
 These include standards of international behavior, the laws
of the sea, economic law, diplomatic law, environmental
law, human rights law, and humanitarian law.
 Some principles of public international law are written, or
"codified" in a series of treaties, but others are not written
down anywhere. These are known as "customary" laws,
and nations consent to them by doing nothing.
World Health Organization

 When diplomats met to form the United Nations in 1945,

one of the things they discussed was setting up a global
health organization.

WHO’s Constitution came into force on 7 April 1948 – a

date we now celebrate every year as World Health Day.
Membership of the WHO

 Kyrgyzstan since 29 April 1992

 Pakistan since 23 June 1948
 United States of America - 21 June 1948
 Afghanistan -19 April 1948
 Uzbekistan - 22 May 1992
 Russian Federation- 24 March 1948
 India became a party to the WHO Constitution on 12
January 1948.
 The first session of the WHO Regional Committee for
South-East Asia was held on 4-5 October 1948 in the
office of the Indian Minister of Health.
 It was inaugurated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime
Minister of India and was addressed by the WHO Director-
General, Dr.Brock Chisholm.
 India is a Member State of the WHO South East Asia
Region.
The right to health in International law

 The right to health is a fundamental part of our human

rights and of our understanding of a life in dignity. The
right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health, to give it its full name, is not
new. Internationally, it was first articulated in the 1946
Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO),
whose preamble defines health as “a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity”.
 The preamble further states that “the enjoyment of the
highest attainable standard of health is one of the
fundamental rights of every human being without
distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or
social condition.”
 The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights also
mentioned health as part of the right to an adequate
standard of living (article 25). The right to health was
again recognized as a human right in the 1966
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.