What is Law?
Law is a system of rules that governs the conduct of people in a society or country. These rules can be made by a government or they may be found in custom or collective experience.
A law can be broken if someone does not follow it or is punished for breaking it. For example, if you break the law by stealing, you could be fined or in jail.
There are many different types of laws and some are more important than others. For instance, the law in a country might be more important than the laws in a city or town.
Examples of laws include the legal rights and obligations of individuals, families and businesses as well as rules about crime and punishment. These laws are designed to keep people from doing wrong and punishing those who do.
The laws in a country are written, publicized and enforced by a government. These laws cover all kinds of things from personal and business transactions to the rights of immigrants, children, the disabled and the elderly.
Some of these laws can be found in the constitution and by statute. The courts use these laws to interpret the law and apply it in different situations.
What is the purpose of Law?
Some theorists say that the purpose of law is to secure social justice. Other theorists claim that the purpose of law is to protect the basic rights of individuals and ensure their safety.
One theory of law – really a family of theories – offers a natural explanation for the content of the law. The theory suggests that the law’s contents are determined by a variety of values (including morality), rather than by a single criterion or set of norms, as some theorists would prefer.
Intentionalists, on the other hand, give primacy to the intentions of lawmakers (the legislature in the case of statutory law or framers or ratifiers in the case of constitutional law). These theorists think that it is more important to find the right intent behind the text than to try and interpret it in accordance with its literal meaning.
According to these theorists, an interpreter should look beyond the text to effectuate the law’s intentions despite any conflict that may arise.
These theorists also think that judges should look for ways to apply these principles in practice. They might do this by evaluating the costs and benefits of a particular ruling, or by weighing the consequences of a judgment against any concerns about the limits of judicial power and competence.
Other theorists think that judges should rely on precedent, structural rules and principles of moral reasoning in order to determine what is reasonable. This way, they can balance the costs and benefits of a decision with the consequences for any individual or group involved in the dispute.
Some of these theorists believe that judges should use these principles when interpreting law, while others think that they should use these principles to fashion legal norms or when deciding how to resolve disputes not controlled by legal norms. The problem is that there is no agreement among judges on a criterion for determining what is reasonable in the context of legal interpretation.