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01.10.2020 11:32 •  Английский язык

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Law and Society

When the world was at a very primitive stage of development there were no laws to regulate life of people. If a man chose to kill his wife or if a woman succeeded in killing her husband that was their own business and no one interfered officially.

But things never stay the same. The life has changed. We live in a complicated world. Scientific and social developments increase the tempo of our daily living activities, make them more involved. Now we need rules and regulations which govern our every social move and action. We have made laws of communityliving.

Though laws are based on the reasonable needs at the community we often don't notice them. If our neighbour plays loud music late at night, we probably try to discuss the matter with him rather than consulting the police, the lawyer or the courts. When we buy a TV set, or a train ticket or loan money to somebody a lawyer may tell us it represents a contract with legal obligations. But to most of us it is just a ticket that gets us on a train or a TV set towatch.

Only when a neighbour refuses to behave reasonably or when we are injured in a train accident, the money wasn't repaid, the TV set fails to work and the owner of the shop didn't return money or replace it, we do start thinking about the legal implications of everyday activities.

You may wish to take legal action to recover your loss. You may sue against Bert who didn't pay his debt. Thus you become a plaintiff and Bert is a defendant. At the trial you testified under oath about the loan. Bert, in his turn, claimed that it was a gift to him, which was not to be returned. The court after listening to the testimony of both sides and considering the law decided that it was a loan and directed that judgment should be entered in favour of you against Bert.

Some transactions in modern society are so complex that few of us would risk making them without first seeking legal advice. For example, buying or selling a house, setting up a business, or deciding whom to give our property to when we die.

On the whole it seems that people all over the world are becoming more and more accustomed to using legal means to regulate their relations with each other. Multinational companies employ lawyers to ensure that their contracts are valid whenever they do business.

When governments make laws for their citizens, they use the system of courts backed by the power of the police to enforce these laws. Of course, there may be instances where the law is not enforced against someone - such as when young children commit crimes, when the police have to concentrate on certain crimes and therefore ignore others, or in countries where there is so much political corruption that certain people are able to escape justice by using their money or influence. But the general nature of the law is enforced equally against all members of thenation.

Government-made laws are nevertheless often patterned upon informal rules of conduct already existing in society, and relations between people are regulated by a combination of all these rules. This relationship can be demonstrated using the example of a sportsclub.

Suppose a member of a rugby club is so angry with the referee during a club game that he hits him and breaks his nose. At the most informal level of social custom, it is probable that people seeing or hearing about the incident would criticize the player and try to persuade him to apologize and perhaps compensate the referee in some way. At a more formal level, the player would find he had broken the rules of his club, and perhaps of a wider institution governing the conduct of all people playing rugby, and would face punishment, such as a fine or a suspension before he would be allowed to play another game. Finally, the player might also face prosecution for attacking the referee under laws created by the government of his country. In many countries there might be two kinds of prosecution. First, the referee could conduct a civil action against the player, demanding compensation for his injury and getting his claim enforced by a court of law if the player failed to agree privately. Second, the police might also start an action against the player for a crime of violence. If found guilty, the player might be sent to prison, or he might be made to pay a fine to the court - that is, punishment for an offence against the state, since governments often consider anti-social behaviour not simply as a matter between two individuals but as a danger to the well-being and order of society as a whole.