Understanding the Definition of Legal Sovereignty

The question asks us to identify the scholar who provided a specific definition of legal sovereignty. Legal sovereign refers to the legally supreme law-making authority within a state. This authority is recognized by the legal system and its commands are binding.

Key Characteristics of the Defined Legal Sovereign

The definition provided in the question highlights several key aspects of this legal authority:

• It is a certain authority.
• It can legitimately express the highest orders of the State.
• Crucially, this authority can disregard divine law, moral principle, and public opinion. This emphasizes its supreme legal position, independent of external or societal pressures.

This particular emphasis on the sovereign's ability to legally disregard divine, moral, or public opinions points towards a specific analytical perspective on sovereignty, focusing purely on the legal source of authority.

Identifying the Scholar

Different political scientists and jurists have defined sovereignty in various ways, often distinguishing between different types such as legal sovereignty, political sovereignty, popular sovereignty, etc.

The definition provided, which stresses the legally supreme authority that is not bound by non-legal factors like divine law or public opinion, is a characteristic definition given by Garner.

Garner, in his work on Political Science and Government, provided a definition of legal sovereignty that aligns with the description given in the question. He focused on the determinate body recognized by law as having the ultimate authority to issue commands that are legally binding on all within the state.

Comparison with Other Options

While other scholars like Barker, Seeley, and Gilchrist have also contributed significantly to the understanding of sovereignty and political concepts, this specific definition attributing the power to disregard divine law, moral principles, and public opinion to the legal sovereign is distinctively associated with Garner's analytical approach to legal sovereignty.

Therefore, based on the provided definition focusing on the legal authority's supreme and unconstrained (by non-legal factors) command power, the correct scholar is Garner.

Revision Table: Concepts of Sovereignty

Additional Information: Garner's View on Sovereignty

James Wilford Garner (1871-1938) was an American political scientist. In his book "Political Science and Government," he discussed different aspects of sovereignty. His definition of legal sovereignty emphasizes the formal, legally recognizable source of ultimate authority. He distinguished this from political sovereignty, which he saw as the sum of the influences that shape the legal sovereign's decisions.

Garner's definition helps to clearly distinguish between the legal source of command and the various political or social factors that might influence the exercise of that command. The aspect of disregarding divine law, moral principles, and public opinion in the context of legal sovereignty highlights its purely legal and absolute nature within the legal framework, though in practice, no sovereign can truly ignore these influences indefinitely without facing consequences.