Law I / Criminal Law in Two Senses
Practice question · Multiple choice

Why is a single article such as "whoever kills another shall be punished with ten to fifteen years" said to contain two norms rather than one?

Hints
  1. Ask who is being told what by the sentence.
  2. The prohibition on killing appears nowhere in the text and is still the thing citizens obey.
Show the answer

D. It addresses the citizen with a prohibition and the judge with a duty to punish as distinct addressees.

Why

Because two different people are being addressed. The primary norm tells the citizen not to kill and is nowhere written; the secondary norm tells the judge what to do if someone does, and is the only part that appears in the text. The criminal law reaches the citizen through a sentence addressed to somebody else, which is a genuinely odd feature of the field.

Read the lesson: Criminal Law in Two Senses →

Practise Criminal Law in Two Senses

The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Law I is free to start.

More questions on Criminal Law in Two Senses