The classification of legal rules

The legal rules may be classified according to several criteria.

1. According to their object under settlement, the legal rules may be
constitutional legal rules, civil legal rules, administrative legal rules, penal
legal rules and so on.
We should keep in mind that the object under settlement is actually
the social relation regulated by the legal rule.

2. According to their juridical force, the legal rules may be legal rules
included in the Constitution, in laws, decrees, government ordinances and
decisions, orders and instructions of ministers.
This classification takes into account the position and the nature of the
state body which has adopted the legal rule. Therefore, this hierarchy of the
legal rules corresponds to the hierarchy of the state bodies and authorities.
This hierarchy is very important, because in case of a conflict between legal
rules adopted by different bodies, the legal rules adopted by the superior
body have priority to apply.
However, as far as the individuals, the addressees of the legal rules are
concerned, all normative acts have the same juridical force, meaning they
are compulsory.

3. According to the character of the prescribed behavior, the legal rules

may be as follows:
a. imperative legal rules;
b. disposal legal rules.
a. Imperative legal rules are those legal rules which must be applied
exactly as they are provided, without exception.
The imperative legal rules may be divided as follows:
- imposed legal rules, which provide expressly the obligation to do
something, meaning they impose to the subject of law a certain behavior, a
certain action.
For example, art. 33, 2nd paragraph, from the Constitution provides:
“The state must take the necessary measures in order to ensure the hygiene
and the public health”.
- prohibitive legal rules, which forbid a certain action, a certain behavior.
For example, art. 37, 4th paragraph, from the Constitution provides:
“The associations having secret character are forbidden”.
b. Disposal legal rules are legal rules which allow the subjects of law to
choose their own behavior.
 The disposal legal rules may be divided as follows:
- permissive legal rules, which provide certain rights or possibilities for the
subjects of law, natural or legal persons.
For example, art. 559 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code provides: “The
owner is allowed to build, above and underground his land, all the buildings,
plantations and works he considers appropriate, with the exceptions
established by law”.
- suppletive legal rules, which allow the subjects of law to choose the
behavior in certain circumstances. Otherwise, meaning if the subjects of law
do not choose their behavior, the provisions of the suppletive legal rule are
to be applied. Therefore, the suppletive legal rule replaces the will of the
parties whenever this will has not been expressed.
For example, art. 1689 Civil Code provides: “the delivery of the sold
goods must be performed at the place where they were situated at the
moment of concluding the contract, unless the parties have agreed
otherwise”.
Therefore, the parties may provide within their sale-purchase contract
the place of delivery of the sold goods which corresponds better to their
interests. If the sale-purchase contract does not contain any clause
concerning the place of delivery, the suppletive legal rule becomes
applicable and it determines, in a compulsory way, the place of delivery of
the sold goods.
4. Taking into account the extent of their application, legal rules may be
classified as follows:
- general legal rules;
- special legal rules;
- exception legal rules.
The general legal rules apply within an entire field of activity, an
entire branch of law.
The special legal rules refer to a limited sphere of social relations,
taking into account specific criteria, circumstances or qualities of the persons
to whom they are addressed. It should be noted that the special rules have a
special character, they derogate from the general rules.
To derogate means to deviate, to depart from a general provision, to
regulate a certain issue in a different way as compared to the general
regulation, to provide exceptions to the general regulation.
The exception legal rules are also derogative. They provide
derogations to the behavior prescribed by general or special legal rules. They
must be strictly interpreted and should be applied solely under the
circumstances described in the hypothesis.
 For example, in relation to the donation contract, art. 1015 Civil Code
provides that the donation contract can not be revoked.
Nevertheless, article 1020 Civil Code provides the exceptions to this
rule, meaning cases in which the donation may be revoked. Thus, for
example, according to article 1020 Civil Code, the donation contract may be
revoked if the beneficiary of the donation does not perform the tasks
assumed through the contract.

This classification is very important in relation to the application of

legal rules. Thus, if two legal rules may be applied in the same time, the
derogative legal rule, meaning the exception rule or the special rule, has
priority to apply, according to the principle “special rules derogate from
general rules”.

5. According to their structure, the legal rules may be classified as follows:

- complete legal rules, which contain all the three elements of their
structure.
For example, article 6, 1st paragraph, of the Government Ordinance
no. 26/2000 provides: “In order to get the legal personality, the members of
the association should conclude the constitutive act and the statute of the
association in authentic form or in written form attested by a lawyer, under
the sanction of absolute nullity”.
- reference legal rules, which do not have all the three elements of their
structure. In order to find the missing elements, the reference rules send to
another legal rule in the same normative act or another normative act.
For example, art. 3, 1st paragraph, from the Law no. 213/1998 on
public property and its juridical regime provides: “The public domain
consists of the goods provided by article 135, 4 th paragraph, from the
Constitution, the goods provided by the annex of the present law, as well as
any other goods that serve a public purpose or a public interest, according to
their nature or to the law”.
- blank rules are also incomplete legal rules, but the missing elements will
be completed in the future, by another normative act which is not yet
adopted.
For example, article 14 of the Law no. 203/1999 on labor permits
provides: “The procedure for issuing and nullifying the labor permits will be
regulated through the application rules adopted by the Ministry of Labor
within 60 days following the publication of the present law in the Official
Monitor of Romania”.