Form and Function in a Legal System
A General Study

This book provides a systematic analysis of the concept of form in legal systems.

Robert S. Summers (Author)

9780521123884, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 December 2009

424 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.62 kg

Review of the hardback: 'The authors rich and multi-layered pictures of various first-level legal phenomena will be of immense important to all theorists working within those specific fields. For policy-makers alone this book is a must.' The Cambridge Law Journal

This book addresses three major questions about law and legal systems: (1) What are the defining and organising forms of legal institutions, legal rules, interpretative 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 book 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.

Part I. Introduction, Basic Concepts, Definitions, and General Approach: 1. Introduction
2. Basic concepts and definitions
3. General approach
Part II. The Forms of Discrete Legal Phenomena: 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 III. The Form of a Legal System and its Operation: 10. The basic form of a legal system as a whole
11. Cumulative and synergistic effects of legal forms - a schematic practical application.

Subject Areas: Law & society [LAQ], Jurisprudence & general issues [LA]