Legal systems combine Hart’s primary and secondary rules.

Evidence

There are, to begin with, rules about rules. There are rules of procedure, and rules that tell us how to tell a rule from a nonrule. To be more concrete, these are rules about juris­ diction, pleadings, judges, courts, voting in legislatures, and the like. A rule that says that no bill becomes a law in New Mexico unless both houses pass it and the governor signs it is a rule about rules. It explains one way to make a legal rule in New Mexico. In a famous book, H. L. A. Hart called these rules about rules “secondary rules”; he called rules about actual behavior “primary rules.” The rules against burglarizing the grocery store or against driving at ninety miles an hour to get there would be examples of primary rules. Law, according to Hart, is the union of primary and sec­ ondary rules. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 52

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the Hartian primary/secondary rule distinction, essential jurisprudential apparatus.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing later: how course texts on precedent and rule-making map onto Hart’s secondary rules.
• XREF: connects to: Law as rules differs from the legal system of structures and processes. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 51; Law emerges when a secondary rule separates legal rules from social rules — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 59; Primary rules impose duties while secondary rules confer public or private powers — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 288 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Primary rules impose duties while secondary rules confer public or private powers #expands (0.95) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 288
• Law emerges when a secondary rule separates legal rules from social rules #corroborates (0.90) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 59
• So Hart offers a general theory of rules that does not make their authority depend upon the physical power of their authors. If we examine the way different rules come into being, he tells us, and… #expands (0.90)
• We must pause over each of these points Hart’s distinction between primary and secondary rules and his rejection of Austin’s command theory, and then note how they merge in Hart’s concept of law. #responds-to (0.85)
• Hart uses primary and secondary rules distinction inconsistently across multiple dimensions #complicates (0.85) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 789
• Internal legal statements manifest an accepted shared framework of rules. #expands (0.80) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 326