Law & Justice

Laws are rules and standards of behaviour which are prescribed by authorities who enforce them with various sanctions. If a law is to be successful, it must be backed by a reasonable section of the community or it falls into disrepute and becomes meaningless. Law is about the control and directing of human social conduct and behaviour. In our legal system we have a number of areas of law dealing with different issues. Some laws deal with criminal behaviour, some deal with disputes between individuals and businesses known as civil, some deal with commercial transactions which is contract, civil disputes will include issues of negligence and nuisance.

Law represents codes of social conduct, which society has decided should be compulsory. This might be described as the only common ‘moral framework’ there is. The law is a way of formally stating behaviour that is to be regarded as acceptable and behaviour that is regarded as unacceptable. There is no choice about which laws are to be obeyed, as they are mandatory.

Justice is a difficult concept to define, the words a person may use when defining it might include fairness, honesty, equality and truth. The legal system tries to achieve justice for all individuals. Sometimes it succeeds and other times it fails. It is said, to be easier in seeing when justice has not been done than when it has.  

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Law sets out to be just. The formal justice system involves institutions following laid down procedures and principles. The aim is to have a just and independent system. The system offered to individuals today would be the same used for another next week. All are equal before the law regardless of wealth, position or power, and all are subject to the same due process.

Justice is something that we all want from a law and believe should be an integral part of any legal system. However, there are numerous examples from history of societies creating unjust laws, and in modern ...

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