Law is a system of rules that governments and societies develop to deal with crime, business agreements and social relationships. It can also be used to refer to the people who work in this system.
The study of Law is a career that is becoming increasingly attractive to young people. It involves advising people about their rights, representing them in court, and giving decisions and punishments.
There are many different kinds of law, but some common ones include:
Property laws govern ownership and possession of land and other things that are attached to it, including cars, computers, jewellery and intangible assets such as stocks and shares. The most important parts of property law are real property and personal property.
Other areas of law that are related to these are; company law, trusts, commercial law and intellectual property.
Legal rights are norms that a person can use to protect themselves from harm, to give them an advantage in a specific situation and to make sure that others don’t do anything illegal. These rights can be influenced by a written constitution or a tacit agreement between people.
Typically, these rights are based on some normative principle such as right of privacy or freedom of speech. They are also known as ‘legal rights’ or ‘natural rights’ because they don’t depend on social convention, enforcement or recognition, and often have a deontological basis rather than an emphasis on utility and policy (see below).
A legal right can be defined as:
Preemptory, Peremptory, and Stringent
The preemptory or “trumping” quality of rights is that they exclude some, but not all, conflicting reasons from their scope of application. This characteristic, however, is not universally exhibited by all legal norms; it depends on the type of conflicting reason that they trump and/or exclude from their scope of application (Lyons 1994: 152; Griffin 2008: 76).
These rights are also usually defended as being “strict.” They set strict or demanding limits on what can happen. The term “strict” is generally applied to certain kinds of legal rights, such as those regulating the process of a trial or appeal.
Those rights that do not set strict or demanding limits on what can happen are called “flexible.” They allow some conflicting reasons to be included in their scope of application.
This flexibility is particularly apparent in those rights that involve a variety of duties; such as the right to legal representation, against unlawful search and seizure and against arbitrary arrest.
Although the precise nature of these duties differs from country to country, a common justificatory structure is evident in such rights:
For example, it is clear that many rights enshrined in criminal procedures are not strictly “natural rights” because they involve the exercise of coercive or punitive power by government officials. Nevertheless, these rights are often thought to be a part of the rule of law and, in some countries, can be interpreted as part of the common good.