Practice question · Multiple choice
A survey finds that only 12 per cent of illegal short-term lets in a city are ever penalised. Why does that finding leave the question of whether such lets are unlawful entirely untouched?
Hints
- Ask which of the four senses the survey measures.
- Whether conduct is unlawful is settled by reading, not by counting.
Show the answer
A. It is evidence about law as fact, and the question asked is about law as norm
Why
The survey measures law as fact and the question is about law as norm. They are different objects, and both answers can be true at once: the norm is in force, and it is barely applied. The option claiming enforcement creates validity is the realist claim pushed past what it can carry; if it were right, no newly enacted statute would be law until the first prosecutions came in.
Practise The Four Things the Word "Law" Means
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