Introduction to Law: What is Law?
Welcome to the My Easy LLB Namibian Law Blog!
These are notes on the meaning of the law. They are not an academic reference. Use them to help you study.
These notes will briefly explain what makes the law, i.e. legal rules, different from other rules.
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Law is a complex concept 😕
There is a consensus amongst writers that it is difficult to define 'law' in a way that captures all its angles. We can go with Amoo’s definition and say that law is a 'body of rules and regulations (or norms) that govern and regulate the conduct and behaviour of the individual in the society for the preservation of order in the society' (Amoo 2008, p. 6).
Most of the law consists of rules which prescribe how people should behave; these rules create terms, competencies and so on (Hage et al., 2017).
While terms like ‘rule’, ‘norm’, ‘guideline’,
‘regulation’, etc., also refer to and influence and govern human behaviour, legal rules are binding and this binding nature sets them aside from those
other terms (Amoo 2008).
Laws are generally created by legislation and judicial decisions and these are known as positive law (Hage et al., 2017). Positive law creates certainty in that it is possible to predict what the outcome of a case will be by looking at existing legislation and/or previously decided cases.
Legal rules prescribe certain behaviour and proscribe certain behaviour
and, in doing so, govern how individuals should behave in any given situation (Amoo 2008).
Legal certainty is extremely
important because people often disagree on what is right or wrong. Yes, this is
problematic. My right might be your wrong and your right might be my very
wrong! We need certainty about the content of the law, that it will be enforced
and that it will be enforced consistently and positive law gives that certainty
to us (Hage et al., 2017).
Finally, the law is a regulatory
framework, creating rights that are handicapped without their corresponding
obligations. Yes, I have a right to park my car in front of my house but not in
such a way that my car narrows the walkway to your front door. That is why, in
law, we have a saying “my rights end where yours begin”.
The branch of law that provides
and imposes rights imposes corresponding obligations is known as substantive
law. On the other hand, procedural law (also known as adjectival law) is the
vehicle through which those rights are realised and those obligations are
enforced (Amoo 2008).
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Hage, J, A Waltermann & B Akkermans (Eds). 2017. Introduction to law. Cham: Springer.
