Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE INTRODUCTION, BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS, AND A GENERAL APPROACH
- PART TWO THE FORMS OF FUNCTIONAL LEGAL UNITS
- 4 Forms of Institutions – Legislative
- 5 Forms of Precepts – Rules
- 6 Form and Content within a Rule – Continued
- 7 Forms of Nonpreceptual Law – Contracts and Related Property Interests
- 8 Forms of Legal Methodologies – Statutory Interpretation
- 9 Forms of Sanctions and Remedies
- PART THREE THE OVERALL FORM OF A LEGAL SYSTEM AND ITS OPERATION
- Name Index
- Subject Index
5 - Forms of Precepts – Rules
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE INTRODUCTION, BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS, AND A GENERAL APPROACH
- PART TWO THE FORMS OF FUNCTIONAL LEGAL UNITS
- 4 Forms of Institutions – Legislative
- 5 Forms of Precepts – Rules
- 6 Form and Content within a Rule – Continued
- 7 Forms of Nonpreceptual Law – Contracts and Related Property Interests
- 8 Forms of Legal Methodologies – Statutory Interpretation
- 9 Forms of Sanctions and Remedies
- PART THREE THE OVERALL FORM OF A LEGAL SYSTEM AND ITS OPERATION
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
“What a multitude of things there are … in a law.”
– BenthamINTRODUCTION
Legal systems recognize varied functional units that are preceptual in nature, including rules, principles, maxims, and general orders. Each variety takes its own overall form. When well-designed, such purposive systematic arrangements can contribute to the realization of policy or other preceptual content. As Jhering held, there can be no realization of such content without form. Due form in rules can also serve general values of the rule of law, and these values may even conflict with, and justifiably over-ride, policy or other content to an extent, a truth I stress here. Form in rules can contribute as well to the realization of democracy, justice, freedom, security, rationality, and other fundamental political values. As we will see, the form and formal features of rules leave major imprints and other effects on the contents of rules. Here, too, much of what may already be familiar will be presented anew in the idiom of form and the formal.
Rules have long occupied legal theorists and other scholars. Rules may be said to be the “workhorse” precepts of legal systems and are worthy of extended attention. Yet despite the long history of legal studies, the overall form of rules and its constituent features have not received their due. It will be sufficient to concentrate here on a common paradigm of the overall form of a statutory rule, the constituent features of such form, complementary content, and how all these are unified.
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- Information
- Form and Function in a Legal SystemA General Study, pp. 136 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005