The document discusses the various functions and importance of law in society. It outlines that laws are needed to regulate society and resolve disputes, as the absence of laws could lead to disastrous consequences. The key functions of law include: resolving conflicts; facilitating private arrangements between individuals; building moral values and norms of society; structuring and controlling public power; providing services to society; and regulating undesirable behaviors. Overall, the document argues that laws play an integral role in governing people and providing order within a society.
The document discusses the various functions and importance of law in society. It outlines that laws are needed to regulate society and resolve disputes, as the absence of laws could lead to disastrous consequences. The key functions of law include: resolving conflicts; facilitating private arrangements between individuals; building moral values and norms of society; structuring and controlling public power; providing services to society; and regulating undesirable behaviors. Overall, the document argues that laws play an integral role in governing people and providing order within a society.
The document discusses the various functions and importance of law in society. It outlines that laws are needed to regulate society and resolve disputes, as the absence of laws could lead to disastrous consequences. The key functions of law include: resolving conflicts; facilitating private arrangements between individuals; building moral values and norms of society; structuring and controlling public power; providing services to society; and regulating undesirable behaviors. Overall, the document argues that laws play an integral role in governing people and providing order within a society.
The document discusses the various functions and importance of law in society. It outlines that laws are needed to regulate society and resolve disputes, as the absence of laws could lead to disastrous consequences. The key functions of law include: resolving conflicts; facilitating private arrangements between individuals; building moral values and norms of society; structuring and controlling public power; providing services to society; and regulating undesirable behaviors. Overall, the document argues that laws play an integral role in governing people and providing order within a society.
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FUNCTIONS OF LAW IN THE SOCIETY
The Marxist theorists have argued that it is possible to have a
society so peaceful and organized that the need for law would be non-existent. However, experience has shown that this is virtually impossible, as laws are needed to regulate the on-goings in a particular society. Lack of laws would mean the solving of disputes in any given way without any given procedures inevitably resulting in disastrous consequences. Hence laws are an integral part of any society and history has shown that the absence of laws has led to one of the most atrocious crimes in history-the Nazi regime. Law is a set of rules and regulations backed by the threat of sanction to govern the people in a society and provided by a sovereign. The law is a social institution, a way of life. Although enforced by the state machinery, it is an expression of the will of the people-a guidance of their human conduct. This paper seeks to explore the functions and the importance of law in a society. The most basic and elementary role of law is the one of solving disputes in the society. Conflict is inevitable in the day-to-day
abrasions of social life. Law provides mechanisms and techniques
for dealing with such conflicts to avoid, as Hobbes put it, the war of all against all in a pre-governmental state. Such mechanisms are imperative to ensure that peoples rights as pertains to each other and as pertains to the state are not infringed on and those obligations both between individuals and between the individual and the state are performed. It is a known fact that laws regulate the operation of courts, tribunals, arbitrators hence they are taken as the standard of justice. This, as a result means that the people have recourse to law when their rights are infringed upon. Law further provides facilities for private arrangements between individuals. By doing this, the law helps individuals in pursuing ends of their choice. However it does not impose its will on the people but rather serves them in realizing their ends using the proper means. The bulk of such arrangements is contained in private law, contracts and torts and include; contracts, negotiable instruments, private property (mortgages, charges), marriage (prenuptial
agreements,
marriage
certificate),
companies
(memoranda and articles of association, cooperatives, banks, trade
unions wills, treaties (on the international plane) etcetera. In these arrangements, patterns of legal relations are formed and inevitably both duty imposing and power conferring rules and procedures are
conferred on such relations thus resulting in rights and duties e.g.
provisions against trespass, theft, and negligence etcetera. The law further outlines proscribed acts and in case of any violations the penalties to be imposed and the remedies available to the party suffering loss. Such restrictions are necessary to protect one party to an arrangement from being exploited by the other party, and to protect third parties from the unfair consequences affecting them resulting from arrangements in which they did not participate. When fulfilling this function the law sometimes provides ways of securing legal protection for arrangements that could be achieved by non legal means e.g. the marriage certificate seeks to protect the married couple from claims by third parties that either is the spouse, something which could be done in a non-legal manner albeit with many loopholes. Laws build the moral opinion of a given society in that it embodies the values and norms of each particular society. It further sets out the principles on which the society rests. This is done through the constitution of countries, which is the supreme law of the land, and any law contrary to it shall be void to the extent of that derogation. The law here may serve to strengthen or weaken the respect given to certain moral values e.g. the sanctity of life, respect for authority in general, sense of national unity etcetera. Law also defines
crimes or offences and their penalties- falls under the auspices of
criminal law, defines rights and duties of individuals toward one another e.g. negligence, contract etcetera falling under the auspices of private law. Law also has the role of structuring and controlling public power. This role specifically serves to ensure that persons who wield power in the society have limits (the ultra vires principle which tends to make sure that public bodies and servants perform their duties within the limits prescribed by law) to their exercise hence minimizing the possibility of autocracy and exploitation of the society in general. Law here plays the role of regulating the public servants behavior so that the society is governed by a set of civilized rules as opposed to adherence to social pressure and anarchy, which would exist in the absence of laws. It thus provides checks and balances for leaders and the politically correct persons in society so that they are also subject to the rule of law. Rule of law here means that every person being subject to the law, not being above the law. Another important function of law is the provision of services. The law performs this function by providing for education (sometimes compulsory free education like in Kenya), health services, road
construction and maintenance, sewage and rubbish clearing,
subsidizing industries, payment social security benefits etcetera. The law more often than not performs this function by conferring powers on officials (e.g. ministers, mayors district officers, provincial officers, councilors etcetera) and prescribing how such powers are to be used. Regulation of behavior, deeds and activities in the society. This function is mainly performed by parts of the criminal law and the law of torts. It is served by prohibitions on murder, assault, unlawful imprisonment, libel, certain forms of sexual behavior, revealing official secrets etcetera. As well as duties of care while engaging in dangerous activities. The behavior which the law seeks to regulate here is one that is considered undesirable by the law and not necessarily the whole population Mostly but not always, such acts (undesirable) are prohibited because they are regarded as likely to adversely affect other persons or grossly impugn on the societys beliefs and values. The law enforces this function by imposing duties and vesting powers on persons who act as per the law.
Ostano Commerzanstalt, Dr. Herbert Jovy, and Tsc Technische Systeme Consult Gmbh & Co. Communication International Kg v. Telewide Systems, Inc. And Bernard L. Schubert, Appeal of Hall, Dickler, Lawler, Kent & Friedman, Esquires, 880 F.2d 642, 2d Cir. (1989)