1. What law is, and why a society has it

A working definition

Rules with authority: Law is any regulation laid down in a community by some authority, whether as legislation or as custom, for the orderly control of how people behave. It can also be described as binding rules of conduct meant to do justice and to prescribe duties.

The broad statement: For this course, law is a body of rules established for the orderly control of the affairs of a state and for the regulation of people in society. That sentence is wide on purpose. It covers an Act of Parliament, a rule of custom that a community treats as binding, and a decision of a court that later courts must follow.

What travels with a law: A law carries the authority of the person or institution that made it, and a consequence for disobedience. A moral hope that has no authority behind it, and no consequence if it is ignored, is not yet law. Whether a moral rule ought to be law is a different question, dealt with under jurisprudence.

Where legitimacy comes from: A rule usually draws its claim to be obeyed either from principles the community accepts or from a sovereign authority, in Sierra Leone from the Constitution and from Parliament acting under it. Section 171(15) of the Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991 makes the Constitution the supreme law. A lecture sometimes calls the Constitution the grundnorm. That word is Hans Kelsen's name for a basic norm. In an answer, prefer the constitutional sentence: the Constitution prevails over any other law.

Why a society needs law

Competing interests: People want different things. Employers and employees, landlords and tenants, doctors and patients, cannot each be the judge of their own claim. Law sets the protocol. Without it, theft, violence and trespass would be private fights, not wrongs a court can name and answer.

Order: Law is how a household, an office and a town stay predictable. People can pattern their conduct on rules they can find out in advance. That is the difference between order and a life in which the stronger person simply takes.

Sanctions: Many people obey because breach is punished or because a court will order compensation. A rule with no sanction is harder to rely on. The sanction is not the whole of law. A duty can exist before anyone is punished for breaking it. But a system that never answers a breach is not doing the work these lectures describe.

Rights: Law also protects liberties, and it gives a route to a court when they are broken. In Sierra Leone, Chapter III of the 1991 Constitution guarantees fundamental rights, and section 28 lets a person enforce them in the High Court. The lecture's claim that "without law, rape and murder would be everyday" is a picture of a failed system, not a description of how often those crimes occur where law exists. The point to keep is that rights need a procedure, not only a slogan.

Disputes: Conflict is normal. Law supplies a formal way to end it: the courts, and also settlement, mediation and arbitration. The state's role in a private dispute is to provide that method. It does not, in a civil case, take over the claim as if it were a crime.

Deterrence: The existence of a known rule and a known sanction is itself a reason not to offend. Deterrence is one function. It is not a licence to invent punishments the statute does not provide.

How to use the definition in an answer

Do not stop at one sentence: A definition question wants the broad statement, then two or three functions, each with a Sierra Leone illustration. Use Chapter III and section 28 for rights, and the courts for disputes. Do not call every custom "law" without saying that the community treats it as binding, and do not call every personal opinion law.