| Abstract [eng] |
The analysis of the object of Master’s Thesis “The Concept and Hierarchy of Labour Law Sources” is divided into three parts: “law sources”, “concept of Lithuanian labour law sources”, and “hierarchy of Lithuanian labour law sources”. The science of law has not yet developed a consistent and comprehensive theory of law sources. Instead of a too abstract concept “law source”, two more specific terms should be used: “source of legal norms” and “source of law thought”. In such case, “source of law thought” would refer to texts of codes, laws or custom laws, works of literature and law doctrine, which provide information about legal norms of a specific time period or country and ideas for legal regulation. “Source of legal norms” is considered to be people’s interests and procedures for creating law that convert these interests into legal norms. Hierarchy of law sources is a system of law sources made up of levels interconnected by subordination links. Thus law sources remind a structure of a pyramid where law sources of a “lower” level cannot contradict law sources of a “higher” level. The principal criterion for classification is a hierarchy of bodies that have adopted such law sources, their legal status, and importance of relations regulated by these law sources. This traditional pyramid principle of law sources is also applied when analysing a system of Lithuanian labour law sources, the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania being placed on the top of the pyramid. Lithuanian labour law sources are as follows: the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, international treaties of the Republic of Lithuania, EU legal norms that regulate labour relations, Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania, other laws and legal texts that do not contradict them, normative dispositions of collective agreements. All the above labour law sources including custom law are considered to be primary, or direct, Lithuanian labour law sources. Secondary (indirect) Lithuanian labour law sources refer to a judicial precedent and law doctrine that Lithuanian Labour Code does not recognize as labour law sources. Nevertheless, their importance should not be underestimated. |
