Law I / Sources of Law and the Legal Order
Practice question · Fill in the blanks

Complete the account of the Spanish system of sources.

Article 1.1 of the Civil Code names statute, ______ and the general principles of law as the sources of the legal order. Case law is not a source; Article 1.6 says it ______ the order. Article 1.7 forbids a court to refuse to decide, so there is no ______. A norm made by the Government under a prior delegation from the Cortes is a decreto ______.

Word bank: custom · complements · non liquet · legislativo · jurisprudence · ley

Hints
  1. The second blank is the exact verb the Civil Code uses about Supreme Court doctrine.
  2. The last blank distinguishes the delegated instrument from the urgent one.
Show the answer

Article 1.1 of the Civil Code names statute, custom and the general principles of law as the sources of the legal order. Case law is not a source; Article 1.6 says it complements the order. Article 1.7 forbids a court to refuse to decide, so there is no non liquet. A norm made by the Government under a prior delegation from the Cortes is a decreto legislativo.

Why

The second blank is the one to hold on to. Supreme Court doctrine carries enormous practical weight and is still not a source in the Code's sense: a source creates norms, a complement fixes how existing ones are read. Getting this right is what lets you say precisely why a change of case law is not a change in the law.

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