Undergraduate Course: Reasoning with Precedent (LAWS10279)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines the practice of justifying legal claims and conclusions by reference to precedent. It combines case law analysis and jurisprudential discussion. |
| Course description |
Students will a) discuss actual judicial opinions identifying how precedent is used in legal argument; and b) familiarise themselves and engage critically with the relevant jurisprudential literature on the subject.
Topics to be covered include:
- Precedent as a source of law
- Precedents and arguments from authority
- Theoretical vs practical authority
- Binding authority vs persuasive authority
- The ratio decidendi of a case
- Deductive arguments in appeals to precedent
- Reasoning with precedent
- The structure of arguments by analogy in common law
- Inductive arguments in appeals to precendent
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One essay worth 100% |
| Feedback |
Students will receive individual feedback on their essay |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Further develop their ability to engage critically with legal precedent in the context of legal reasoning in general and juidical reasoning in particular
- Further develop their ability to articulate and assess sound precedent-based legal arguments
- Further develop an understanding of the moral and political dimensions of precendent based reasoning in law
|
Reading List
| A full reading list will be given in the course guide in advance of the course starting |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course will develop skills of analysis and the ability to read critically and closely, to evaluate, to debate, and to discuss relevant materials in a group, as well as an ability to write cogently in addressing such material. |
| Keywords | precedent,ratio decidendi,legal argumentation,legal rhetoric |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Claudio Michelon
Tel:
Email: c.michelon@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Emma Hughes
Tel: (0131 6)50 2008
Email: Emma.Hughes@ed.ac.uk |
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