Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law| Concept of Grundnorm| Philosophy of Law| LLB Part 1 Philosophy of Law|

Welcome back to the channel! Today, we’re diving into an important legal concept – Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law – in a simple and clear way. So, what is this theory all about? Hans Kelsen, a famous Austrian jurist, came up with the idea of a “pure” theory of law. And by "pure," he meant that law should be studied separately from politics, religion, morality, or history. In other words, when we study law, we should focus only on law itself – not on whether it’s good, bad, fair, or unfair. According to Kelsen, law is a system of rules or norms. These norms are arranged in a hierarchy – a kind of ladder. Each rule gets its authority from a higher rule. At the very top of this ladder is something called the “Grundnorm”, or the basic norm. It’s not written anywhere, but it’s assumed to be there. It gives validity to all other laws in the system. This is very different from natural law theories, which say that if a law is unjust, it’s not really a law. Kelsen strongly disagreed. He said we should study law as it is, not as it should be. To sum up, Kelsen’s Pure Theory helps us understand the structure of legal systems by focusing only on the legal rules and how they are connected. It’s a powerful way to look at law with logic and clarity.