Introduction of Law

1.  Introduction 

1.  Definitions of Law

        ‘Law’ can be understood in many different ways and has a broad meaning. The term ‘Law’ is very difficult to define because it is used to mean different things in different contexts.  But in general form of definition, ‘Law’ is ‘rules of behaviour’. It tells us what must be done, what may be done and what cannot be done.

        In different dictionaries, the word ‘Law’ has been different defined. In the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘Law’ is the body of enacted or customary rules recognized by a community as binding. It means the set of tradition rules which has pass by parlimen and accepted by community to follow. Besides that, ‘Law’ also defines as any body of rules which is organized and structured and relates to a particular code of conduct in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. As in Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law, ‘Law’ is a rule of action to which men are obliged to make their conduct comfortable; a command, enforced by some sanction. It means a regulation of action to everyone have to behave according to law.

        Next, legal jurist also have propounded their definitions of ‘law’. Sir John Salmond who defined law as ‘the body of principles recognized and applied by the state in the administration of justice’. John Austin considers law as ‘command issued by the sovereign and backed by sanctions’ and lastly Benjamin Nathan Cardozo describes law as ‘a principle or rule of conduct so established as to justify a prediction with reasonable certainty that it will be enforced by the courts if its authority is challenged’.

        Other than that, the Third New International Dictionary from Merriam-Webster defines law as "Law is a binding custom or practice of a community, a rule or mode of conduct or action that is prescribed or formally recognized as binding by a supreme controlling authority or is made obligatory by a sanction (as an edict, decree, rescript, order, ordinance, statute, resolution, rule, judicial decision, or usage) made, recognized, or enforced by the controlling authority."

        In addition, the Dictionary of the History of Ideas published by Scribner's in 1973 defined the concept of law accordingly as "A legal system is the most explicit, institutionalized, and complex mode of regulating human conduct. At the same time it plays only one part in the congeries of rules which influence behaviour, for social and moral rules of a less institutionalized kind is also of great importance."

        Last but not least, it may be summarized from the above given definitions that ‘law’ has the characteristics such as consist of body of rules and command, must be recognized and binding on the society, enacted by a sovereign, functioned as an instrument of social control and justice, and enforced by way of sanction. The table below shows the explanation for each characteristics of law.