Form and Function in a Legal System: A General Study

by Robert S. Summers

• ISBN13: 9780521123884
• ISBN10: 0521123887
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-07
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book addresses three major questions about law and legal systems: (1) What are the defining and organizing forms of legal institutions, legal rules, interpretive methodologies, and other legal phenomena? (2) How does frontal and systematic focus on these forms advance understanding of such phenomena? (3) What credit should the functions of forms have when such phenomena serve policy and related purposes, rule of law values, and fundamental political values such as democracy, liberty, and justice? This is the first book that seeks to offer general answers to these questions and thus gives form in the law its due. The answers not only provide articulate conversancy with the subject but also reveal insights into the nature of law itself, the oldest and foremost problem in legal theory and allied subjects.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Basic Concepts, Definitions, and General Approach

Introduction

Basic concepts and definitions

General approach

The Forms of Discrete Legal Phenomena

Forms of institutions - legislative

Forms of precepts - rules

Form and content within a rule - continued

Forms of nonpreceptual law - contracts and related property interests

Forms of legal methodologies - statutory interpretation

Forms of sanctions and remedies

The Form of a Legal System and its Operation

The basic form of a legal system as a whole

Cumulative and synergistic effects of legal forms - a schematic practical application

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