Why then the Law?

Extract

It is a mark of realism that any inquiry should start from where one is and an inquiry into law should start from our everyday understanding of it. Such an inquiry would most likely register a variety of reactions, each in its own way instructive. Law may suggest ‘law and order’ of the sort that is usually associated with right-wing or repressive sections of the political spectrum. Law may suggest the police carrying out their duties; think of the colloquial expression, ‘I’ll get the law on you’. Law may suggest a judge or magistrate sentencing. Law may suggest Parliament at work. On the whole each of these spontaneous images builds on a central picture of law as a command to be enforced in case of disobedience. On longer reflection law would seem to exist to keep order, public peace and stability so that civic life can flourish and law does in some general way embody the predominant views of the community as a whole most of the time. Moreover our reflections would show that there is virtually nothing which could not be demanded or forbidden by law and in turn that there is no law which could not be changed. We have very little, except perhaps the fact that a Parliamentary majority, if not always right, can at least be changed to shield us from the possible content of law and the severity of its application.