Law: meaning, nature, sources, kinds, and law and morality

1. Meaning of law

The word law comes from the Teutonic root lag, something laid down or fixed. In the political sense it means the body of rules recognised and enforced by the State.

• John Austin (The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, 1832): law is “a command of the sovereign”, addressed to subjects and backed by a sanction. This is the analytical or imperative view.
• T. E. Holland: law is “a general rule of external human action enforced by a sovereign political authority”.
• Woodrow Wilson (The State): law is “that portion of the established thought and habit which has gained distinct and formal recognition in the shape of uniform rules backed by the authority and power of government”. This is the historical view: law grows out of custom before the State adopts it.
• Sociological view (Duguit, Roscoe Pound): law is a means of social control, whose validity depends on serving social needs rather than on command alone.

2. Nature and characteristics

1. Made or recognised by the State. Rules of a club or a family are not law in this sense.
2. Regulates external conduct. Law deals with acts, not thoughts or motives as such.
3. Backed by a sanction. Breach attracts punishment, damages or invalidity.
4. Universal and uniform. It applies equally to all within its scope.
5. Definite and certain. It is stated in a form people can know in advance.
6. Related to public opinion and justice. Law that loses public support becomes hard to enforce; law that is unjust invites disobedience (Unit V).

3. Sources of law

Holland identified six sources. They are given in roughly historical order.

1. Custom. The oldest source. Practices followed for a long time acquire binding force and are later recognised by courts and legislatures. Much of Hindu personal law and English common law began as custom.
2. Religion. In early societies rules of religion and rules of law were the same. Dharmashastras, the Shariat and canon law are examples; personal laws in India still draw on religious sources.
3. Judicial decisions. Judges interpret law and, where it is silent, make it. Under Article 141 of the Constitution, law declared by the Supreme Court binds all courts in India.
4. Scientific commentaries. Writings of jurists (Blackstone, Coke; Vijnaneswara’s Mitakshara, Jimutavahana’s Dayabhaga) clarify and sometimes shape law.
5. Equity. Where strict law produces injustice, courts apply fairness and good conscience. English Chancery courts developed equity as a separate body of rules.
6. Legislation. The modern and most important source: law deliberately made by a legislature, and by the executive under delegated power (topic 2).

Some authors add public opinion and international treaties and conventions as modern sources.

4. Kinds of law

• Constitutional law defines the organs of government and the rights of the people; any ordinary law inconsistent with it is void.
• Administrative law governs the powers and procedures of the executive and the remedies against it. It is a branch of public law.
• Criminal and civil law: criminal law punishes wrongs against society (in India the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024); civil law redresses private wrongs by damages or specific relief.
• International law: rules governing relations between States. Austin denied it the name of law because no sovereign enforces it; most writers now treat it as law resting on consent and reciprocity.

5. Law and morality

Morality is the body of rules about right and wrong conduct that rests on conscience. Law and morality overlap heavily: murder, theft and fraud are both illegal and immoral. But they differ.

The relationship.

• Morality influences law. Many laws enforce moral ideas: abolition of untouchability (Article 17), prohibition of dowry and child marriage.
• Law influences morality. Law can lead moral opinion: anti-discrimination laws changed what society regarded as acceptable.
• Law should not enforce all of morality. The Hart–Devlin debate is the classic exchange. Lord Devlin (The Enforcement of Morals, 1965) argued that society may use law to protect its shared morality, because shared morality holds society together. H. L. A. Hart (Law, Liberty and Morality, 1963) replied, following Mill’s harm principle, that law should punish only conduct that harms others, not conduct that is merely thought immoral.
• Law must not contradict basic morality. Natural law thinkers from Aquinas onwards held that an unjust law is not true law. This is the root of the right of civil disobedience.

Green summed up the political scientist’s position: the State can enforce only external acts, so it cannot make men moral; but it can “hinder hindrances” to the moral life. Law creates the conditions for morality; it cannot replace it.

How this is examined

January 2026 (100 marks) Q.3: “Define law and explain its sources and types”; January 2026 (80 marks) Q.2(a): “What is meant by law? Explain its sources and kinds”; February 2025 Q.2(b): “Briefly narrate the kinds of law”. Write three definitions, Holland’s six sources with an Indian example each, and the kinds in a table. Law and morality is the most likely short note from this topic.