Law is undoubtedly an area of study that is essential at some point to everyone and it has many interconnections with other areas of study. I thought of writing about this topic because personally I find law so interesting since it is the area I persue my studies in. I did give a very brief introduction to law in a prior post. However due to the very impressive comments by some regarding that particular post, I have decided to write something about law and continue to do so in future as well.So I hope this blog will create an intrest to anyone who wants to know more about law & you are most welcome to ask any question on legal topics, specially the sri lankan position.
So lets learn the basics today and gradually develop an undestanding about this facinating area of study.
why do we need Law? well that's a basic question you would ask even from a law student.An instant answer would be, to govern society in a certain manner otherwise individuals will take decisions as they please and society would be in chaos. so law has existed in some form or other in almost every civilization, be it very basic rules such as customs, to very advance rule like those found in Roman law.
However to roots of most basic principles of law are connected to the rich historical era of the Roman empire. Thus Roman law( which is a seperate subject in many law courses although the roman law
per se is obsolete) is very valuable to identify basic principles of law & these are even evident today. For example the Roman law of property has developed the law governing servitudal rights, where one individual has rights over a another individual's land. This principle is still applicable today & we commonly know this a right of way.
Moving on to the basic divisions of law, there as two major divisions, namely the common law and the civil law. the former also known as the angl-american tradition is the law that prevails in countries like UK & USA. the latter system of law mainly prevails in european countries like france & germany. this basic distinction is vital since it is the foundation of a legal system in any country.
It is also important to know what the sources of law are, meaning where we can find the law. Thus the main sources of law are, Legislation( laws passed by parliament such as 'Acts'), Judicial Precedent ( that is case law), Custom( Practices for a long period of time) & opinion of jurists ( legal scholors like, Hugo Grotiuos, Johannes Voet etc). The importance given to these various sources will differ accoding to the legal system. Thus in the common law legislation is the most important source followed by the other sources mentioned above, whereas in civil law tradition opinion of jurists is the main source of law.