We explain what the laws are, their history and how they are classified. Also, what are their characteristics, what they are for and importance.
What are the laws?
The laws are the set of legal norms dictated by a legislator, that is, by a competent authority on the matter. Its function is to order, prohibit or allow something specific and concrete. Its compliance is mandatory for those who live under the rule of the same legal code to which the law belongs, such as the constitution of a country or its penal code.
Those who do not obey the laws are exposed to punishment by the State’s law enforcement agencies. They must defend the official legal framework and guarantee, at least in democracies, equal rights before the Law, that is, the Rule of Law.
Furthermore, no law can contradict the fundamental mandates of the Constitution or Magna Carta. This is because the laws They have a certain kind of hierarchy among themselves, in which the Constitution occupies the highest place, so that any legislation must be subordinated to it. Laws are also the field of expertise of lawyers, judges and legislators.
See also: Law
Origin of laws
Laws have existed Since man understood the need for a common code that distinguishes between good and evil.
However, for a long time human societies were at the mercy of the whims of law enforcers, such as judges.
This changed when the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) made the decision that the laws were written.
So the first code of law was drawn upwhich was distributed among the people so that everyone could read it and know it.
History of laws
Laws and their written supports have changed a lot throughout history. Many people created their own codes and laws.Some required mutual agreement supported by religious mandates, such as the Tables of Law. In others, however, they were imposed by force, as empires did with their conquered neighbors.
The way of making the laws of the Roman Empire, direct precursor of the Western legal systemThe first compilation of Roman Law was made during the government of Emperor Hadrian, who gave the instruction in the year 121 AD to compile the current laws.
The result was the Perpetual Edict. Its objective was to make the application of the law more fair, since it would not depend on the memory or will of the judges.
Later, the Edict was not enough because enormous number of laws that accompanied the growth of the Empire. For this reason, during Justinian’s government a new Roman code was drafted, called Corpus Iuris Civilis and known as the Code of Justinian (529 in its first version and 534 in the second).
The system of laws in the West then suffered a major setback during the Middle AgesWith the development of feudalism, laws were imposed on his fief by each landowner or lord. However, religious laws were above all, under the supervision of the Catholic Church and its institutions, such as the Holy Inquisition.
Later, as kingdoms were unified and monarchs were crowned, both sets of laws became one. In this way, the absolute power of the monarch was maintained and at his side in the government the ecclesiastical clergy.
This last legal provision ended with the advent of the Modern Age. With it the study of laws was developed and the application of reason as a new precept of bourgeois societies. These arose from the French Revolution of 1789, when the laws governing the universal rights of humanity were declared.
Definitions of laws
Some historical definitions of law are as follows:
- “The common consent of the city” Aristotle (384-322 BC)
- “It is what the people command and establish” Gaius (c. 120-c. 178)
- “Ordination of reason directed by the common good and solemnly promulgated by those who care for the community” Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
- “Legislation means the establishment of general legal norms, regardless of the body that carries them out” Hans Kelsen (1881-1973)
Types of laws
A very first division of the total body of laws is whether or not they are contained in a written legal corpus. Thus, we have:
- Natural law. Natural laws are those that are based on human biology or on precepts that are considered extremely basic and elemental to the human condition. These laws are inherent to the mere fact of being human. They are considered prior to and in a hierarchy above any written body of laws.
- Positive law. All those laws enacted within the framework of a society and that have a written text that supports and contains them, such as codes and regulations. This law in turn is classified according to its mode of operation as:
- Permissive. Those that provide a right or a possibility.
- Prohibitive. Those that curtail a freedom or restrict a right.
- Declaratives. Those whose content consists of formal definitions or explanations.
What are laws for?
Laws serve fundamentally to to rule, prohibit or allow something in a specific society. The rules of the game are established by law, whether in the criminal, commercial, family or any other possible field.
Self-determining societies are governed by their own laws, while those subject to another are governed by those dictated by their colonizer. They are always backed by an authority or a power that is functional to maintain a specific order.
Who issues the laws?
Laws must be issued by a legitimate and recognized authority so that they can be valid. They are the result of social, political and legal institutions. Their approval generally follows some kind of protocol, which eventually leads to their dissemination among the people who must comply with it.
For example, in democratic republics, laws are fruit of the work of the legislative body: Parliament or Congress. This legislative assembly is made up of representatives of the popular choice expressed through voting.
In other types of government regime, such as absolutist monarchies, the laws are dictated by the will of the monarchOn the other hand, in theocratic societies the laws are taken from some sacred religious text.
How do the laws operate?
The laws work based on certain principles that are their own:
- Generality. The law applies to everyone who is contemplated in its content, without any type of reservations or distinctions.
- Mandatory. Compliance with the law should not be optional, but rather imperative-attributive, and a crime is committed and punishment is deserved each time the provisions of the law are violated.
- Permanence. Laws are in force indefinitely, until the body that promulgates them so decides, either due to their replacement by another, or due to their lack of need.
- Abstraction and impersonality. Laws do not regulate or contemplate individual cases, but rather dictate behavior in the abstract, without being directed at anyone in particular, but at the entire community.
- Irretroactivity. Laws do not operate retroactively, meaning that a crime committed before the law prohibiting it was passed cannot be punished. Laws always apply forward in time.
- Ignorance does not excuse. Ignoring the laws, that is, not knowing that they existed, does not exempt us from the punishment provided for by law for breaking it.
How are laws repealed?
Laws that are no longer desired or useful are repealed, that is, are taken out of circulation in societyThis procedure, called repeal, is the responsibility of the legislative body of society and can only be carried out while respecting the hierarchy of laws.
Why are laws important?
Laws are the instruments through which human beings regulate our behavior in society. They provide us with a unique, similar code by which to judge our actions and know what is accepted or not by the population as a whole.
Besides, define how problems should be resolved that they are presented with the law. In this sense, there are no societies without laws, even if they are not official or if they are imposed by types of authority that are not exactly democratic.
How are laws written?
Laws They usually involve a set of items arranged and numbered (called articulate). Each of them details information about what the law defines, prohibits or authorizes.
Some laws They are very extensive and include highly specific articles.Others, however, are more general and expressly delegate the particular content to that contained in other codes, norms and laws. These articles are expressed in a general, timeless and abstract manner.