THE CONSEPT OF LAW

The English word "law" refers to limits upon various forms of behavior. Some laws are descriptive: they simply describe how people, or even natural phenomena, usually behave. Other laws are prescriptive–they prescribe how people ought to behave.

In all societies, relations between people are regulated by prescriptive laws. Some of them are customs, some are rules and some are precise laws made by nations and enforced against all citizens within their power.

When governments make laws for their citizens, they use a system of courts backed by the power of the police to enforce these laws.

What motives do governments have in making and enforcing laws? Social control is undoubtedly one purpose. Without laws there would be anarchy in society.

Another purpose is the implementation of justice. Justice is a concept that most people feel is very important but few are able to define. Sometimes a just decision is simply a decision that most people feel is fair. But in general, governments are guided by more practical considerations such as rising crime rates or the lobbying of pressure groups.

Sometimes laws are simply an attempt to implement common sense. But in order to be enforced, common sense needs to be defined in law, and when definitions are being written, it becomes clear that common sense is not such a simple matter. Instead, it is a complex skill based upon long observation of many different people in different situations.

In practice, governments are neither institutions solely interested in retaining power, nor clear-thinking bodies implementing justice and common sense. They combine many purposes and inherit many traditions. The laws that they make and enforce reflect this confusion.

The laws made by the government of one country are often very different from the laws of another country. But although there is a growing body of international law, the law today is, to a large extent, a complex of different and relatively independent national systems.

Despite major revisions over the centuries, the legal system of England and Wales is one of the oldest still operating in the modern world. (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own internal legal systems, although many laws made by the British government operate throughout Britain.) English law has directly influenced the law of former British colonies such as Australia, India, Canada and the nation where law plays a bigger part in everyday life than anywhere else, the United States.

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