THIS PAPER IS NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THE EXAMINATION HALLS

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON LA3005 ZB

DIPLOMA IN THE COMMON LAW

LLB
BSc DEGREES WITH LAW

Jurisprudence and legal theory

Tuesday 24 May 2016: 10.00 – 13.15

Candidates will have THREE HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES in which to

answer the questions.

Candidates should answer ONE question from SECTION A (The Set Book)
and THREE questions from SECTION B of the following TWELVE questions.

Candidates should answer all parts of a question unless otherwise stated.

Permitted materials
None.

© University of London 2016

UL16/0209
Page 1 of 3
SECTION A (The Set Book)

1. ‘Hart wanted to tell us what law is. Instead, he only showed us some
important features of law in well-developed municipal states.’

Discuss.

2. ‘Hart was fully aware of the moral criticisms made against positivism.
Hence, his defence of positivism as a theory which will enable better
moral criticism of law.’

Discuss.

3. ‘The existence of a legal system does not depend on an empirical

criterion such as the Rule of Recognition but rather on the extent to
which it complies with morality.’

Discuss.

SECTION B

4. ‘More often than not, law is indeed like the gunman situation writ large.
Legal theory ought to take more seriously the idea that persons are
mostly subjected to laws they do not know, understand or like.’

Discuss.

5. Critically discuss the place of sanctions in Kelsen’s theory of law.

6. ‘It is a virtue of Raz’s account of law as authority that it does not allow
the law to interfere in matters, such as our sexual preferences, which
can only be decided by us alone as autonomous agents.’

Discuss.

7. ‘Fuller’s critics are wrong – one is much less likely to have an evil
regime where there is overall compliance with the eight desiderata of
the internal morality of law.’

Discuss.

UL16/0209
Page 2 of 3
8. ‘Dworkin’s distinction between principles and policies, and his
argument that judges ought to decide only by principles, is simply too
unrealistic. Judges often decide cases on the basis of policy: a theory
of adjudication should recognise that, not define it out of the picture.’

Discuss.

9. ‘Recognition of the importance of the natural law tradition still suffers

from a major misunderstanding – that its proponents defended the idea
that unjust law is not law. They never did so.’

Discuss.

10. ‘The most plausible Marxist understanding of law is in terms of an

ideology that stabilises the capitalist mode of production.’

Discuss.

11. ‘Radical feminists see the source of women’s oppression as not merely
unfair discrimination practiced by some individuals against other
individuals, but rather as institutional and systemic. The institutions of
law and state reflect and reinforce male power, and cannot therefore
be regarded as a neutral means of resolving inequalities.’ (Margaret
Davies).

Discuss.

12. ‘If legal theory cannot help us to deal with problems in the real world,
then it is not worth the paper it’s written on.’

Discuss.

END OF PAPER

UL16/0209
Page 3 of 3