What are the elements of law? What are the classifications of laws?

Legal elements refer to the basic factors or elements that constitute the law. It is generally believed that law consists of three elements: rules, principles and concepts.

1, legal rules

(1) Legal rules are codes of conduct that stipulate people's legal rights, legal obligations and corresponding legal consequences in a certain structural form.

(2) Type of legal rules: 1. Authoritative rules and mandatory rules; 2. Deterministic rules, appointment rules and applicability rules; 3. Mandatory rules and arbitrary rules.

(3) Structure of legal rules: Logically speaking, any complete legal rule consists of three parts: assumptions (conditions), behavior patterns and legal consequences. Legal rules should be distinguished from legal provisions. Legal rules are the contents of legal provisions, and legal provisions are the manifestations of legal rules.

2. Legal principles

(1) Legal principles refer to comprehensive and stable principles and norms as the guiding ideology, foundation or source of legal rules in a certain legal system.

(2) the difference between legal rules and legal principles: in content, the provisions of legal rules are clear and specific, while the requirements of legal principles are general and vague; In the scope of application, legal rules only apply to a certain kind of behavior, while legal principles have a macro-guiding role, and their scope of application is wider than legal rules; In the way of application, legal rules are applied to cases in an all-or-nothing way, and there may be different or even conflicting principles in a law; Functionally, legal rules are more obvious than legal principles.

3. Legal concept

Legal concept is one of the constituent elements of law, and it is an authoritative category formed by summarizing various legal facts and abstracting their similarities and differences. The concept of law is different from that in daily life, and it has the characteristics of clarity, standardization and unity. The concept of law is the atom that constitutes the whole legal system and the most basic element in the legal knowledge system.

classify

The Constitution is the fundamental law of the country and the mother law of all laws and regulations in China. Other laws and regulations are sub-laws of the Constitution. If the sub-law violates the contents of the parent law, the sub-law is invalid. Except the parent law-Constitution, we can divide all other laws and regulations into the following four major departments. Namely: (1) criminals; (2) civil; (3) economy; (4) administrative management. Litigants can focus on studying the laws and regulations of a department according to the lawsuits they have played.

(1) criminal aspect. Divided into two categories, one is substantive law, which stipulates which acts are crimes, what crimes are committed, and what penalties will be imposed. Such as: Criminal Law, Provisional Regulations on Punishing Soldiers' Violation of Duties, relevant decisions, notices and supplementary provisions made by the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC). The other is procedural law, that is, the law that stipulates the procedures and steps for handling criminal cases. Such as the Criminal Procedure Law and relevant supplementary provisions made by the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC).

(2) Civil aspects. Also divided into two categories. One is substantive law, such as general principles of civil law, marriage law, inheritance law, adoption law, copyright law, and other relevant supplementary provisions. The other is procedural law, such as civil procedure law and arbitration regulations. , which also includes various relevant supplementary provisions and temporary provisions.

(3) Economic aspects. Substantive law mainly includes economic contract law, technology contract law, tax law and product quality law. The procedural law is the same as or basically the same as the civil procedure law.

(4) administrative aspects. Substantive law includes food hygiene law, environmental protection law, labor law, safety law, regulations on administrative penalties for public security, etc. Procedural law includes administrative litigation law, administrative reconsideration regulations and other relevant supplementary provisions.