Law

Your housing society’s bye-law says no firecrackers after ten at night. The Mumbai Police can also fine you for noise. Your grandmother says that in her village the elders’ decision on a boundary dispute was final, and everyone obeyed. Which of these is law, and why? If you answer only that law is what the government says, you will struggle to explain the elders, and if you answer only that law is what people obey, you will struggle to explain a rule nobody enforces. This topic is about how jurists have tried to answer.

In two minutes

There is no single accepted definition of law: natural law theorists tie it to reason and justice, Austin to the command of a sovereign, Kelsen to a hierarchy of norms, Hart to a union of primary and secondary rules, and Pound to social engineering.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Jurisprudence / Legal Theory on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.