What About Law?: Studying Law at University

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The appellate judges are adept at being creative with the existing law, managing to respect the declaratory theory while, in reality, changing the law slightly. This definition is perfectly satisfactory as far as it goes, but it does not tell us much about what law really is, either as an academic subject or about the way it works for lawyers and members of the public. Negotiation and dispute resolution skills (including ADR techniques) are also important to legal practice, depending on the field. Because popular elections appoint political parties to govern, the leader of a party can change in between elections.

The more people are involved with, concerned by and capable of changing how political power is exercised over their lives, the more acceptable and legitimate the law becomes to the people. Levi noted that the "basic pattern of legal reasoning is reasoning by example"—that is, reasoning by comparing outcomes in cases resolving similar legal questions. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and also serves as a mediator of relations between people.The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules, numerous amendments and 117,369 words. So let’s think in a bit more detail about where law comes from and the role it plays in different sorts of disputes.

Following Brexit, pre-Brexit decisions of the European Court of Justice, the highest court of the EU, have the same precedential value as decisions of the UK Supreme Court but the UK Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal can depart from them where it is ‘right to do so’ (a test which raises all sorts of questions). It is a real unity of them all in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man should say to every man: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou givest up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner. Nonetheless, most religious jurisdictions rely on further human elaboration to provide for thorough and detailed legal systems. Anarchist law primarily deals with how anarchism is implemented upon a society, the framework based on decentralized organizations and mutual aid, with representation through a form of direct democracy. On this view, we at once see that it can no longer be asked whose business it is to make laws, since they are acts of the general will; nor whether the prince is above the law, since he is a member of the State; nor whether the law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to himself; nor how we can be both free and subject to the laws, since they are but registers of our wills.

In 1297, for instance, while the highest court in France had fifty-one judges, the English Court of Common Pleas had five. Canon law is only in use by members of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion. Examples include a Master of Laws, a Master of Legal Studies, a Bar Professional Training Course or a Doctor of Laws.

On the King's behalf, the Lord Chancellor started giving judgments to do what was equitable in a case. shows how the study of law can be fun, intellectually stimulating, challenging and of direct relevance to students. Raz argues that law is authority, identifiable purely through social sources and without reference to moral reasoning. I am sure that anyone who has the good fortune to pick up and read this book will answer the title question with a resounding 'Yes! The courts had struggled for years to find common law solutions to protect people from onerous exclusion clauses and notices of this kind, but parliamentary intervention was able to do the trick in an instant.Don’t forget that although this book focuses on court cases, knowing and understanding the law allows lawyers to settle disputes without them ever reaching court or, better still, preventing them from arising in the first place. In India, the Hindu legal tradition, along with Islamic law, were both supplanted by common law when India became part of the British Empire. Academic opinion is divided on whether it is a separate system from civil law, given major deviations based on Marxist–Leninist ideology, such as subordinating the judiciary to the executive ruling party. Normally there will be several readings and amendments proposed by the different political factions.