Lecture 1
Why do you need this course:
- Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Therefore: not knowing the law is no excuse
What is law:
- Law: rules that govern and guide actions and relations among and between persons,
organizations, and governments
- Law: the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct of
a community that are recognized as binding by the community
- E.g., you’re in the Netherlands, so the Dutch law is binding
- E.g., you’re Turkish but you’re in the Netherlands, Turkish and Dutch law are binding
since you’re in that community
What will be covered in this course:
- Law and data science
- IP
- Ethics
- Data protection
- Private law
Example COVID app
- Privacy or data protection ⇒ collects sensitive info
- Administrative law = ensure that government authorities act in fair, consistent and transparent
manner (don’t need to know)
- Private law ⇒ ownership
- Intellectual property law
- Data ethics ⇒ what is the fair way of using this data
Objectives:
- The key objective of this course is to make students aware about the role law plays - or can play -
in the field of data science
- After completing this course:
- Identify the basic functions of law
- List the various sources of law
- Describe the relation of law to different modalities of regulation
Clarifying some concepts:
- Rights
- Absolute rights and relative rights:
- Absolute right: right that can be exercised against all others (e.g., property right, right to
privacy); e.g., property right, exercising right of owning house to everybody else, no one
can suddenly decide to live in your house
- Relative rights: right that can only be exercised against one or more determined
persons (e.g., loan); e.g., if you’ve a contract with someone
- Objective and subjective law/ rights:
- The law (objective): refers to principles of foundations that exist independently of the
application of these principles; e.g., the right of freedom of expression is an objective
right
, - The general legal principles or rules that exist independently of any one person.
They are the big, overarching legal standards written in the constitution, laws, or
human rights documents
- Example: everyone has the right to freedom of expression
- This exists regardless of whether or not anyone is using it
- It’s about what the law says is allowed or protected, universally
- Subjective right: personal entitlements or claims that a specific individual has under those
objective laws
- Example: your right to freedom of expression, how it applies to you, in your
specific situation
- If someone tries to stop you from speaking freely, you can claim your subjective
right
- How the law protects you individually
- Involves your legal position or interest, and whether that is being violated
Law:
- Purposes and functions
- Principles and rules
- Sources and hierarchy
- Argumentation and legal reasoning
- International and EU law
Purposes and functions: purposes
- The law consists of norms regulating human behavior and rules that organize the state
- The purposes of law could be summarized as:
- Establishing standards (in a society)
- Maintaining order (in a society)
- Resolving disputes (between, parties, people, or organizations, or governments and
people amongst and between all these people)
- Protecting liberties and rights
- There is a distinction between moral norms and legal norms
- When we talk about moral norms, it’s just the norms in the society that don’t have legal
effect (when talking about other modalities of regulation other than law, it is about moral
norms)
- But there are also legal norms that do have legal effect
Purposes and functions: functions
- Rule of law vs rule by law
- Rule by law: where in the past when kings use the law to establish their own order,
they’re using the law to establish their own order to protect their own interests
- Very easily be the subject of abuse to just protect the people in power and not
the freedoms and liberties of the people and the society
- Rule of law: everyone is subject to the law, no one is above the law, and laws must be
applied fairly and equally
- Governance is split into three branches of law:
- Legislative function (or legislature): determines the rules that will govern the process of
adjudication. Legislation tells judicial function how to adjudicate; parliament makes the
laws
, - Executive function: ensures, first, that the disputing parties submit to adjudication in the
first place, and second, that they actually comply with the settlement eventually reached
through the judicial process; make sure that the country is ruled, so the government
- Judicial function: adjudicates disputes, deciding how a disagreement should be settled;
the court
⇒ In an ideal society, these branches should function independently from each other
- So the legislative functions shouldn’t be able to determine what the judicial function does
in their every step
- But they should also be accountable to each other and answer to each other through a
system that we like to call checks and balances
- This is the system that is called checks and balances
Three branches of governance:
- First the legislature, the parliament will set the sentence that can be imposed by a court, e.g., the
sentence for this crime is prison
- The court will decide in each case whether this will apply, need to apply the rules equally
- Double role ⇒ they don’t only apply the rules, they also interpret the rules, so they set a
precedent (= previous court decision that serves as a guide or rule for future cases that
are similar in facts or legal issues; the court makes a decision in a case, and that decision
becomes a reference point for future similar cases)
- Makes sure that the executive doesn’t abuse their powers and they’re all equal in the
eyes of the law
- They also check the legislature, because by interpreting the law, they make sure that the
law that is made does not contradict with the constitution ⇒ parliament cannot come and
make a law that takes away your constitutional rights
- Executive function, they rule, try to govern states, make sure that the states are going according
to legislature
, Principles and rules:
- Principles are at a higher level of abstraction than rules. They form the background of legal rules
and can be used to interpret, to complete or to correct legal rules
- E.g., courts abide by the principle of fairplay (government agencies should be impartial
when deciding on policy and decision making), even though it is not written in law ⇒ legal
principle
- These principles provide the underpinning of the justification of the rule
- But we know that some legal rules cannot be applied simultaneously, and this results in a
conflict between them, e.g., freedom of speech and hate speech, there are no rules that
indicate how you should decide upon the matter ⇒ legal principles
- Are all rules legal rules?
- E=mc2
- The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally
⇒ These are all rules not laws
- Legal rules: judge made (in verdict) or by legislator (in codes)
- Legal rules ⇒ talking about written law
- Principles ⇒ talking about principles that are behind creating the law or behind deciding
on the case
- Rules ⇒ can be talking about any rules, not legal rules per se
Sources:
1. Treaties
- Treaties bind states that have signed and ratified (sign/ give formal consent, making it
officially valid) them
- E.g., the treaty of the functioning of the European Union applies to the member States
who have signed and ratified that treaty
- So they only apply to states and jurisdictions that have signed and ratified and agreed to
that treaty
- Depending on the type of treaty, they may also bind individuals within those states
- The international treaties, they only bind the states that have signed and ratified them
2. Legislation (including the constitution)
- Laws that are made by the Parliament or the constitution of that jurisdiction
- Imposes legal norms on those within the jurisdiction
- E.g., the Dutch Criminal Code will only apply to the people who are in the
Netherlands
- The legislation will only bind and impose legal norms on those within that jurisdiction, and
it is decided by that jurisdiction as well
- The difference between the treaties and the legislation is treaties that bind different states
that agree upon them and sign and ratify them
- Legislation are only applicable to those within the jurisdiction and not only the
citizens of this country (e.g., even though you’re not a Dutch citizen, you’ve to
abide by the rules)
- A country can only impose laws on people or acts occurring within its own borders
- Rights of the people are usually written in a constitution
3. Case law/ judicial decisions
- These are made by using the legislations and the treaties
- They are also sources of the law
- Dual role ⇒ not only applying legislation but also interpreting them
Why do you need this course:
- Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Therefore: not knowing the law is no excuse
What is law:
- Law: rules that govern and guide actions and relations among and between persons,
organizations, and governments
- Law: the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct of
a community that are recognized as binding by the community
- E.g., you’re in the Netherlands, so the Dutch law is binding
- E.g., you’re Turkish but you’re in the Netherlands, Turkish and Dutch law are binding
since you’re in that community
What will be covered in this course:
- Law and data science
- IP
- Ethics
- Data protection
- Private law
Example COVID app
- Privacy or data protection ⇒ collects sensitive info
- Administrative law = ensure that government authorities act in fair, consistent and transparent
manner (don’t need to know)
- Private law ⇒ ownership
- Intellectual property law
- Data ethics ⇒ what is the fair way of using this data
Objectives:
- The key objective of this course is to make students aware about the role law plays - or can play -
in the field of data science
- After completing this course:
- Identify the basic functions of law
- List the various sources of law
- Describe the relation of law to different modalities of regulation
Clarifying some concepts:
- Rights
- Absolute rights and relative rights:
- Absolute right: right that can be exercised against all others (e.g., property right, right to
privacy); e.g., property right, exercising right of owning house to everybody else, no one
can suddenly decide to live in your house
- Relative rights: right that can only be exercised against one or more determined
persons (e.g., loan); e.g., if you’ve a contract with someone
- Objective and subjective law/ rights:
- The law (objective): refers to principles of foundations that exist independently of the
application of these principles; e.g., the right of freedom of expression is an objective
right
, - The general legal principles or rules that exist independently of any one person.
They are the big, overarching legal standards written in the constitution, laws, or
human rights documents
- Example: everyone has the right to freedom of expression
- This exists regardless of whether or not anyone is using it
- It’s about what the law says is allowed or protected, universally
- Subjective right: personal entitlements or claims that a specific individual has under those
objective laws
- Example: your right to freedom of expression, how it applies to you, in your
specific situation
- If someone tries to stop you from speaking freely, you can claim your subjective
right
- How the law protects you individually
- Involves your legal position or interest, and whether that is being violated
Law:
- Purposes and functions
- Principles and rules
- Sources and hierarchy
- Argumentation and legal reasoning
- International and EU law
Purposes and functions: purposes
- The law consists of norms regulating human behavior and rules that organize the state
- The purposes of law could be summarized as:
- Establishing standards (in a society)
- Maintaining order (in a society)
- Resolving disputes (between, parties, people, or organizations, or governments and
people amongst and between all these people)
- Protecting liberties and rights
- There is a distinction between moral norms and legal norms
- When we talk about moral norms, it’s just the norms in the society that don’t have legal
effect (when talking about other modalities of regulation other than law, it is about moral
norms)
- But there are also legal norms that do have legal effect
Purposes and functions: functions
- Rule of law vs rule by law
- Rule by law: where in the past when kings use the law to establish their own order,
they’re using the law to establish their own order to protect their own interests
- Very easily be the subject of abuse to just protect the people in power and not
the freedoms and liberties of the people and the society
- Rule of law: everyone is subject to the law, no one is above the law, and laws must be
applied fairly and equally
- Governance is split into three branches of law:
- Legislative function (or legislature): determines the rules that will govern the process of
adjudication. Legislation tells judicial function how to adjudicate; parliament makes the
laws
, - Executive function: ensures, first, that the disputing parties submit to adjudication in the
first place, and second, that they actually comply with the settlement eventually reached
through the judicial process; make sure that the country is ruled, so the government
- Judicial function: adjudicates disputes, deciding how a disagreement should be settled;
the court
⇒ In an ideal society, these branches should function independently from each other
- So the legislative functions shouldn’t be able to determine what the judicial function does
in their every step
- But they should also be accountable to each other and answer to each other through a
system that we like to call checks and balances
- This is the system that is called checks and balances
Three branches of governance:
- First the legislature, the parliament will set the sentence that can be imposed by a court, e.g., the
sentence for this crime is prison
- The court will decide in each case whether this will apply, need to apply the rules equally
- Double role ⇒ they don’t only apply the rules, they also interpret the rules, so they set a
precedent (= previous court decision that serves as a guide or rule for future cases that
are similar in facts or legal issues; the court makes a decision in a case, and that decision
becomes a reference point for future similar cases)
- Makes sure that the executive doesn’t abuse their powers and they’re all equal in the
eyes of the law
- They also check the legislature, because by interpreting the law, they make sure that the
law that is made does not contradict with the constitution ⇒ parliament cannot come and
make a law that takes away your constitutional rights
- Executive function, they rule, try to govern states, make sure that the states are going according
to legislature
, Principles and rules:
- Principles are at a higher level of abstraction than rules. They form the background of legal rules
and can be used to interpret, to complete or to correct legal rules
- E.g., courts abide by the principle of fairplay (government agencies should be impartial
when deciding on policy and decision making), even though it is not written in law ⇒ legal
principle
- These principles provide the underpinning of the justification of the rule
- But we know that some legal rules cannot be applied simultaneously, and this results in a
conflict between them, e.g., freedom of speech and hate speech, there are no rules that
indicate how you should decide upon the matter ⇒ legal principles
- Are all rules legal rules?
- E=mc2
- The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally
⇒ These are all rules not laws
- Legal rules: judge made (in verdict) or by legislator (in codes)
- Legal rules ⇒ talking about written law
- Principles ⇒ talking about principles that are behind creating the law or behind deciding
on the case
- Rules ⇒ can be talking about any rules, not legal rules per se
Sources:
1. Treaties
- Treaties bind states that have signed and ratified (sign/ give formal consent, making it
officially valid) them
- E.g., the treaty of the functioning of the European Union applies to the member States
who have signed and ratified that treaty
- So they only apply to states and jurisdictions that have signed and ratified and agreed to
that treaty
- Depending on the type of treaty, they may also bind individuals within those states
- The international treaties, they only bind the states that have signed and ratified them
2. Legislation (including the constitution)
- Laws that are made by the Parliament or the constitution of that jurisdiction
- Imposes legal norms on those within the jurisdiction
- E.g., the Dutch Criminal Code will only apply to the people who are in the
Netherlands
- The legislation will only bind and impose legal norms on those within that jurisdiction, and
it is decided by that jurisdiction as well
- The difference between the treaties and the legislation is treaties that bind different states
that agree upon them and sign and ratify them
- Legislation are only applicable to those within the jurisdiction and not only the
citizens of this country (e.g., even though you’re not a Dutch citizen, you’ve to
abide by the rules)
- A country can only impose laws on people or acts occurring within its own borders
- Rights of the people are usually written in a constitution
3. Case law/ judicial decisions
- These are made by using the legislations and the treaties
- They are also sources of the law
- Dual role ⇒ not only applying legislation but also interpreting them
