Primary rules impose duties while secondary rules confer public or private powers
Evidence
Under rules of the one type, which may well be considered the basic or primary type, human beings are required to do or abstain from certain actions, whether they wish to or not. Rules of the other type are in a sense parasitic upon or secondary to the first; for they provide that human beings may by doing or saying certain things introduce new rules of the primary type, extinguish or modify old ones, or in various ways determine their incidence or control their operations. Rules of the first type impose duties; rules of the second type confer powers, public or private. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 288
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 288
- XREF: connects to: Certain laws provide facilities for realizing wishes instead of imposing duties. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 175; A rule differs from an order, among other ways, by being normative, by setting a standard of behavior that has a call on its subject beyond the threat that may enforce it. A rule can never be binding just because some person with physical power wants it to be so. He must have authority to issue the rule or it is no rule, and such authority can only come from another rule which is already binding on those to whom he speaks. That is the difference between a valid law and the orders of a gunman.; The rules that stipulate how Congress is composed, and how it enacts legislation, are examples of secondary rules. Rules about forming contracts and executing wills are also secondary rules because they stipulate how very particular rules governing particular legal obligations (i.e., the terms of a contract or the provisions of a will) come into existence and are changed. (+7 more)