The Fundamental Features of Legal Rationality

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to clarify the logical structure of a code connecting together some distinctions already introduced by different authors: a distinction between primary norms and secondary norms, the latter being implied by the provisions describing institutions in the indicative; a distinction between norms the content of which concerns a state and those the content of which concerns a behaviour which is itself function of several states; a distinction, among the primary norms, of the norms of competence by which a normative power can be delegated to an individual; lastly a distinction between regulative rules and constitutive rules.