POSITIVE LAW

Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society. “A ‘law” in the sense in which that term is employed in jurisprudence, is enforced by a sovereign political authority. It is thus distinguished not only from all rules which, like the principles of morality and the so-called laws of honor and of fashion, are enforced by an indeterminate authority, but also from all rules enforced by a determinate authority which is either, on the one hand, superhuman, or, on the other hand, politically subordinate. In order to emphasize the fact that ‘laws,’ in the strict sense of the term, are thus authoritatively imposed, they are described as positive laws.”