Discuss the meaning and sources of law?
Definition and meaning of law: Law could be defined from different perspective. These perspectives will be explained below;Briefly, law is a body of rules that regulates conducts of individual in the society and it is administered and enforced by constitutional authority, in other words, law is the body of rules of social conduct which one recognized as obligatory by the people whose conduct it guides and which visits specific sanctions administered by authority.Law is said to be the principle and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.Law is when every group in a society work together and agree on what is best for then in other to maintain stability in their society. Law is very important in a society as it represent the values of the community as a whole. Law is a complex whole of many phenomena. The phenomena include the norms regulating behaviour and the machinery for their enforcement and administration. These norms that constitute the law present an orderly picture of the society in which the norms operates. Laws are made to take care of the interest of a particular group i.e. the rich people. This is because the rich people are in position to influence the making of law because they dominate the economy; therefore, law tends to resolve the constant conflict between the rich and the poor. Law is said to be impartial as it is agreeable to everyone within the society.According to John Austin (a Lawyer) he defined law as "a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being an intelligent being having power over him. This definition conforms to the imperative or command theory of law."John Salmond also defines law as "the body of principles recognized and applied by the state in the administration of justice."Sources of LawSources of law are the materials from which legal rules are made. These materials includes: Customs, religious believe, morality, habits, mores and folkways, whether written or not. Hence, legislation, codification, judicial precedents and equity are also sources of law.Sources of law are the materials and processes out of which law is developed. In modern nation states, the basic sources of law include a Constitution, statutes, case law, and regulations issued by government agencies. Sources of law for public international law and religious law differ, however, from the primary law of individual countries. The natural law theory argues that some rules objectively existing in the nature also are source of law, while legal positivism argues that only the rules made by sovereignty can be the sources of law.When talking about legislation as a source of law, it is the laws that result from activities of a law enacting body such as the legislature. In other words, when a group of people usually representing the sovereign, sit down to consciously deliberate and enact laws. Such body is regards to as legislature.The Customs and judicial precedent is another source of law which combines with the decision of judge in decided case of the past. Judges are bond by decision already reached by court in the past, when they are confronted with a new case with similar facts in this way, custom and judicial precedent serves as a source of law.Fairness and justness is another source of law which is commonly known as Equity. It enables one to ask if justice has been done even when the law has been followed to the letter.Adeyanju Ayotunde Email diamonday1982@yahoo.com
