Law And Society

Question 1

What is society?

Answer 1

• society is a group of people with common territory, interaction and culture
• doesn’t have to follow formal boundaries
• members of a society have to come into contact with each other but geographic distance and language barriers can divide societies within a country
• members of a society do not necessarily have to share every aspect of culture and may even exist as separate societies within the same country - those is pluralism

Question 2

What is pluralism?

Answer 2

• a pluralist society is one one in which there are many different cultures and traditions that all co exist
• in the uk, some groups used to belong to other societies - romans, vikings, Norman’s and so on
• other groups have come more recently and whilst having assimilated into British society, many still retain their own traditions.
• Britain is a multicultural society. This means that no one group is considered more influential than another
• pluralism allows members of minority groups to maintain their own independent cultural traditions and believes that the existence of these different traditions is a good thing
• all of this requires tolerance from all concerned

Question 3

What role does law play in society

Answer 3

• there has to be a clear set of laws that are easily accessible, a strong enforcement system and an independent judiciary to protect people from the state, individuals and other organisations
• lord Bingham sets out 8 principles for the role of law of society:
  1. The state must abide by domestic and international law
  2. People should only be punished fot crimes laid down in law
  3. Questions on the infringement of rights must be subject to the law, not discretion
  4. The law should be accessible and open to public scrutiny
  5. All people should be treated equally
  6. Respect human rights
  7. Courts to be accessible, affordable and cases should be heard without delay
  8. Means to be provided without costs or delay to resolve disputes

Question 4

Law as social control

Answer 4

• social control is the way in which our behaviour, thought and appearance is regulated by the rile, norms, laws and social structures in our society
• roscoe pound - ‘social control through law’. Basic principles social ethnical have a three fold purpose:
  1. To identity and explain human claims, demands or intrests of a social order
  2. To express what the majority want the law to do
  3. To guide the courts in applying the law
• some rules of conduct are encouraged, but not legally enforceable, like politeness, whereas others are mandatory, like not killing so one
• social control maintains social order and fails when the law is weak or not enforced consistently
• law on assisted suicide
• there is rarely universal agreement on the law in general and it is open to interpretation, but whilst a jury in a criminal trial will have to establish a verdict based on the quality of the evince as to what would be acceptable to the reasonable man, the judge must then apply a sentence that is appropriate to the crime

Question 5

Social control through civil and criminal labour

Answer 5

• some examples from substantive law and procedure
• the balance between the need for householders to protect themselves from intruders and the use of justifiable force.

Question 6

Social control in contract and the law of tort

Answer 6

• in contract, law controls the ways in which sectors of society can impose their will and profit from others through legislation like the consumer rights act 2015
• the law has also attempted to broaden the rights of the third parties since tweedle v Atkinson.
• in tort, the question of social control is addressed in finding an appropriate balance between the rights of the claimant and the the defendant
• Bolton v stone - in favour of the cricket club against the victim because a decision the other way would have had policy implications for the wider society

Question 7

Consensus theory

Answer 7

• in order to achieve a fairer social system, there needs to be a cooperation and compromise. Society works best when there is agreement about appropriate behaviour and standards. Institutions that reward positive behaviour and punish negative make a fair social, economic and political system. Durkhiems throaty is that consensus exits within society

Question 8

Conflict theory

Answer 8

• perpetual conflict between groups owing to competition for limited resources. Marx, society is in conflict because the wealthy and powerful use any means possible to keep what they have by oppressing the poorer and powerless

Question 9

Labelling theory

Answer 9

• most people commit criminal or deviant acts but only some are caught and punished. Although most of us commit some criminal or deviant acts, we regard other acts as truly criminal and stigmatise those who do them

Question 10

Is there a problem with magistrates?

Answer 10

• are magistrates representative
• recommendations and findings from a House of Commons select committee in 2016:
• steps to increase diversity amongst magistrates. Whilst 53% are female, there are some benches with no BME magistrates
• rebalance the age profile
• 4% are disabled and 45% are over state pension age
• whilst most magistrates are doubtless very well informed on the profile of their local communities and family court magistrates usually have excellent training, the main problem here is with perception
• if one of the hallmarks of English justice is to be tried by your peers, if magistrates dont reflect what their peers are like

Question 11

Access to justice in society

Answer 11

• regardless of the situation, everybody in society is entitled to legal representation, yet there have been problems here too
• the right to legal advice comes up again in r v Samuel

Question 12

Legal aid controversies

Answer 12

• the discussion concerning legal aid countries. A government report published on February 7th 2019

Question 13

Legal realism

Answer 13

• the main context here is that the law, as needs to be understood, should focus mainly on what is practised in the courts, law officers and police stations rather than acts of parliament and statutes law
• legal realists are more intrested in the law where it stands in court judgements, rather than society and do no consider acts of parliament, as they usually only uphold judge made common law precedent anyway
• it is a myth that there is ant certainty in the law given dissenting judgements that come out of the higher courts. So the best we can do is to define law as a prediction of what the courts will do
• in effect, the judge decides what rights the parties are going to have in cases in an attempt to balance the differences interests in a case

Question 14

Legal thinkers

Answer 14

• various legal thinkers have had different theories over the years on how best to use the law to balance the interests of those in a society