WHAT IS MEANT BY

LAW?
Unit 1
 Law
 Zakon; pravo; propis; pravilo; pravna
znanost; pravna profesija
 Law (Collins Cobuild English
Dictionary)
 1. The law is a system of rules that a
society or government develops in order
to deal with crime, business agreements,
and social relationships. You can also use
the law to refer to the people who work
in this system. They are seeking
permission to begin criminal proceedings
against him for breaking the law on
financing political parties...
 law
 2. Law is used to refer to a particular
branch of the law, such as criminal
law or company law. Under
international law, diplomats living in
foreign countries are exempt from
criminal prosecution...
 law
 3. A law is one of the rules in a
system of law which deals with a
particular type of agreement,
relationship, or crime
 The law was passed on a second
vote.
 law
 4. The laws of an organisation or
activity are its rules, which are used
to organize and control it.
 ...the laws of the Church of England...
 law
 5. A law is a rule or set of rules for
good behaviour which is considered
right and important by the majority
of people for moral, religious, or
emotional reasons
 ...inflexible moral laws...
 law
 6 A law is a natural process in which
a particular event or thing always
leads to a particular result
 The laws of nature are absolute.
 law
 7. A law is a scientific rule that
someone has invented to explain a
particular natural process
 ...the law of gravity...
 law
 Law or the law is all the professions
which deal with advising people
about the law, representing people in
court, or giving decisions and
punishments
 A career in law is becoming
increasingly attractive to young
people.
 law
 Law is the study of systems of law
and how laws work.
 He came to Oxford and studied law.
 Law (Black’s Law Dictionary)
 1. The regime that orders human
activities and relations through
systematic application of the force of
politically organized society, or
through social pressure, backed by
force, in such a society; the legal
system
 Respect and obey the law
 law
 2. The aggregate of legislation,
judicial precedents, and accepted
legal principles; the body of
authoritative grounds of judicial and
administrative action; esp., the body
of rules, standards, and principles that
the courts of a particular jurisdiction
apply in deciding controversies
brought before them
 The law of the land
 law
 3. The set of rules or principles
dealing with a specific area of a legal
system
 Copyright law
 law
 4. The judicial and administrative
process; legal action and
proceedings
 When settlement negotiations failed,
they submitted their dispute to the
law
 law
 5. A statute
 Congress passed a law
 law
 6. COMMON LAW
 Law but not equity
 law
 7. The legal profession
 She spent her entire career in law
 Definitions of the law
 “Rules of conduct imposed by a state upon its
members and enforced by the courts.”
 A norm is a law “if its neglect or infraction is regularly
met, in threat or in fact, by the application of physical
force by an individual or group possessing the socially
recognized privilege of so acting”
 A rule is a law if “it is externally guaranteed by the
probability that coercion (physical or psychological), to
bring about conformity or avenge violation, will be
applied by a staff of people holding themselves
specially ready for that purpose”
 Purpose of law
 “to regulate human behaviour and
establish social order…”
 The macro functions of law: law
and orders
 Public order
 Political order
 Social order
 Economic order
 International order
 Moral order
 Religious order
 Law and public order
 Preserving public order
 Protection of human rights and civil
liberties
 Law and political order
 The constitutional function of law
 The UK constitutional arrangements:
 Membership in the EU
 The Scotland Act 1998 and the Wales Act 1998
 The Human Rights Act 1998
 Laws relating to official secrecy and freedom
of information
 The law regulating the relationship between
central and local government
 Law and social order
 Maintaining existing social order:
protecting the rights of those with
property and economic power
 Promotion of equality of opportunity
(education, health care, work
opportunities)
 Combating discrimination on grounds
of gender, ethnicity and race,
disability or age
 Law and economic order
 Ownership rights; rules of transfer of
ownership rights;
 Law of contract: an essential tool in
the development of market economy
 Safety at work
 Promoting competition and limiting
monopolistic positions
 Consumer law
 Law and international order
 Crimes against humanity
 Regulation of world trade, protection
of the environment, the regulation of
the use of the sea, or space (treaties,
enforcement mechanisms:
international courts or tribunals)
 The conduct of war (the Geneva
Convention)
 Asylum law
 Law and moral order
 Law = morality (?)
 Criminal law
 Relationships between individuals
(family law)
 Law and religious order
 History: law closely linked to religion
 Today: law should not be used to
support religious order
 Law should protect the ability of
those of different religious beliefs to
hold and practise their religion
(European Convention of Human
Rights, Article 9)
 Other macro functions
 Resolution of social problems
 Regulation of human relationships
 Educative function (outlawing
discrimination; rule of law: powers of
state officials must be limited; rights
of individual citizens)
 Micro functions of law
 Defining the limits of acceptable
behaviour: boundaries of criminal law –
culturally determined and dynamic;
civil law: breach of contract, negligence
 Defining consequences of certain forms
of behaviour
 Defining processes for the transaction
of business and other activities
(transfer of property rights)
 Micro functions of the law
 Creating regulatory frameworks (public
services)
 Giving authority to agents of the state to take
actions against citizens (e.g. police powers to
stop, search, question, arrest and caution;
powers of doctors to detain patients in mental
hospitals; powers of social workers to remove
children from families)
 Preventing the abuse of power by officials
 Prescribing procedures for the use of law