The Book · Chapter 12 of 28
Chapter 12Sources, Hierarchy and the Chain of Legal Authority
How does authority travel from source to system without breaking: which defects break the authority of an act, which permit correction or severance, and who has competence to decide the consequence?
The chapter develops
The Unbroken Authority Chain.
The Unbroken Authority Chain
The path from source to outcome must remain demonstrably lawful.
Doctrine 11 of the Book’s twenty-one. A proposed formulation, not an enacted rule.
Summary
A valid statute does not by itself validate every transformation that produces a computational act. This chapter develops the Unbroken Authority Chain as an institutional and evidentiary account of that passage. It follows sources through hierarchy, jurisdiction and legal time into interpretation, representation, data, execution, human adoption and enforcement. At each material stage, the inquiry asks who possessed competence and what verifiable record connects the act to its claimed authority. Conceptual analysis, bounded legal comparisons and reported administrative practices inform an authority map and fifteen-question audit. Cross-border dependencies and agentic sequences extend the problem without enlarging the originating mandate. The chapter carries forward the treatise’s proposed nullity consequence for determinations lacking valid legislative pedigree, while assigning the consequences of other defects to governing law, materiality and competent review. Documentation is not sufficient: the record must permit independent examination, and a remedy must be able to reach the broken link.
- authority chain
- source hierarchy
- institutional competence
- legal time
- representation validity
- data provenance
- materiality
- systemic remedy
The chapter text
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