What Is Law?

General Rules of Behaviour Or Conduct

It tells us what must be done, may be done and what cannot be done.

Definitions of Law

5 Characteristics of Law

Functions of Law:

1. Social Control

•  To maintain social order and survival
• To ensure that members of a society may live and work together in an orderly and peaceful manner.

2. Social Resolutions

• Mechanisms of conflict resolutions and dispute settlement.
• To reconcile and harmonise the social conflict.

3. Social Justice

• The aims of law are to attain justice in a society; laws are equally enforced against them; and there is fairness in the application of the law. 
• Promotes the doing of what is right and just in a particular set of circumstances and maintained that everyone should get what they deserve.

4. Social Change

• Law also functioned as a medium of social change.
• Examples: In US, law has been used as the principal mechanism for improving the political and social positions of the blacks and China managed growth through law to moderate its population.

Classifications of Law:

Source: PLC0015 Introduction to Commercial Law