Jurisprudence
MODULE CODE
CREDIT VALUE
DELIVERY
Module Aims
Aim 1
To further develop and extend critical thinking and writing through evaluating fundamental questions about law and legal institutions in historical, philosophical and political contexts and consider critically how approaches to law making, legal reasoning, and legal development reflect different answers to these questions, with a particular focus on law and government, legal and non-legal rationality in adjudication, and the role and limits of law in the development of social structures of power and control.
Module Content
• Introduction to the ‘law question’; charting the issues.
• Law and Government: sovereignty, citizenship, justice.
• Legal rationality and adjudication: models of reasoning; formalism vs realism; hard cases.
• Law and the foundations of modernity: liberalism, rule of law and democracy.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module, a student will be able to:
Teaching Methods
Campus delivery will be organised around lectures and workshops. Lectures will introduce new legal ideas and concepts and build an outline of the structure of legal rules and principles. Further reading of cases and statutes in secondary and primary legal sources will consolidate and expand the breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding. Small group workshops will allow students to test their level and range of understanding and reflect formatively on areas of strength and weakness. Workshops will also develop and support general legal techniques and skills in support of legal reading, analysis, writing, drafting and note taking, legal problem solving through IRAC type techniques, as well as test formative knowledge and understanding. Summative assessment will focus on the accuracy of synoptic knowledge across the whole syllabus and evaluate legal problem-solving skills and the ability to create structured legal arguments that draw reasoned conclusions through factual scenarios that raise key legal issues from the syllabus. Module support materials (lecture outlines lecture recordings, Office Mix presentations, Power-point slides, workshop questions, cases, case materials, technique and skills materials, exemplar assessments) will be located on a dedicated module virtual learning environment, which will also be used as the repository for assessment submission, student communication, and e-discussion boards.
Assessment Methods
This module is assessed through two Written Assignments.
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Compulsory
Optional
