rated from its true, historical origins – the people – and instead the tasks of applying and developing the law had turned into activities that constituted adomain reserved for jurists rather than that of the people.8 Because of this process of specialization and the advent of centralized legislation, the concept of law was divided into two main categories. On the one hand there was the law proper (law in the true or material sense), which corresponded materially with the general consciousness of law, and on the other there was law in the technical or formal sense.9 But even if the law, technically speaking, had been separated from the people, Nordling nevertheless claimed that the true test of whether or not a norm constituted law proper was by reference to the norm’s true genesis as expressed by its correspondence with the general consciousness of law.10 A norm’s status as law could thus be identified on material grounds rather than on formal or technical grounds. Thus the general consciousness of law functioned as a meta-norm of law, a norm formally capable of invalidating any rule of law belonging to the technical sources of law, contradicting or lacking support in the general consciousness of law. In accordance with his general theory of law, Nordling categorized the technical sources of law as: The factors determining and legitimizing the respective status of the sources as law are then defined in close accordance with the ideas of the Historical School. The fundamental principles of this notion of law endured throughout the period discussed and recurred in one form or another in the texts of various authors, for instance, several authors argue that the ultimate source of law, and its substance, is to be found max ly l e s 163 8 See Nordling, Svensk civilrätt, pp. 27-30. Last edition 1912. 9 See, for instance, Carl Axel Reuterskiöld who uses the term “technical” to distinguish between a source of law proper and the various emanations or channels the law proper. (Carl Axel Reuterskiöld, Grunddragen af den allmänna rätts- och samhällsläran, särskildt med hänsyn till positiv svensk rätt, jämte grundlinjer till rättsutvecklingsläran och rättsvetenskapens historia (Uppsala, 1912), pp. 67-83.) 10 Nordling, Svensk civilrätt, pp. 27-29. 11 Ibid., p. 26. • Popular custom (the customs of the people); • Legislation; • Case law (court practice, precedence); • Legal theory (legal doctrine).11
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