Legal Norms: The Problems of Understanding and Definition

In legal studies, there are different approaches to definition of legal norms and characterization of their structures. Analyzing the approaches, the author highlights such attributes of legal norms as state-power origin, normativity, formal certainty, systematic character, and social justice. The additional attributes are hierarchical structure, repeated process of application, and self-implementation. The author scrutinizes the natural and social conditions of legal norms and proposes his own definition of legal norms.The author emphasizes the factors that should be taken into consideration while forming legal norms. The influence of society on forming the rules is highlighted. Society effects on forming legal rules through social relationships regulated by these rules.The issues concerning structure of legal norms are examined. In literature, there is not a uniform position on this matter. At present new conceptions of logic structure of legal norms are being sought within the changing legal reality. In the author’s opinion, an amount of structural elements of legal rules depends on a lot of factors, both objective and subjective. First of all, it depends on actual social relationships and the will of a legislator.