value and justice of the legal norms themselves, for what is interesting from a practical point of view is the substantive content of the norms, because it is this content that the jurists must determine, interpret, and define in order to conclude whether or not a the rule can be applied to a case.175 In turn this involves that the validity of a conclusion can tested against real or hypothetical cases, as well as that real or hypothetical cases can be used in order to determine what according to valid law must be considered as being legally correct, which combined constitute advantages that are beneficial not only to legal practice, but also to the academic study and teaching of law. Hägerström’s analysis of law concludes that the system of positive law is an actually implemented system of rules addressed to the organs of state (as made up by the hierarchically lower organs of state such as police, prosecutors, judges, and public authorities).177 Before dealing with this statement, the relationship between the state and the law must be described. The prevailing opinion of Hägerström’s contemporaries was that positive law emanated from the will of the state or the will of the legal order. Accordingly, legal theory accorded the state with legal omnipotence, hence it was only through an act of self-binding (a command addressed to itself stating that the state should respect what is prescribed by law) that the state, on the one hand, was bound to respect and protect the statutory stipulated rights of private individuals, and on the other, bound to a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 347 175 See, e.g., Hägerström, “Stat och statsformer (1921),” p. 216; “Förhållandet mellan staten och rätten (1924),” pp. 268-272. 176 Hägerström, “Hägerström.”; “The Philosophy of Axel Hägerström.” 177 Cf. Hägerström, “Hägerström.”; “The Philosophy of Axel Hägerström.”; “Stat och statsformer (1921),” pp. 203-207. See also Hägerström, Magistratische Ius, p. 1. 3. 6 [3] the real legal orde r : pos i t ive law: “… is only a system of rules for the so-called organs of the state - themselves defined in the rules - a system of rules which is actually carried through.”176
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