Rules, Rights and Justice: an Introduction to Law - Essay Example

Changes in law are realized through parliamentary legislations, judicial interpretations and the European court of human rights. Domestic sources of changes in law are initiated by factors such as the law commissions, advisory committees, and government proposals. This paper seeks to discuss the behavioural aspects of law and dynamism of law. The paper will explore the reasons why behaviour may become unlawful and explain how the law can change. Unlawful conduct Laws are sets of formal rules that regulate and govern conducts of members of the society by providing prescriptions of what an individual should do and those that an individual should not do.

Any action that contravenes the provisions of the outlaid law is therefore termed unlawful. Since criminal law deals in the relationship between citizens and the state to regulate conducts of the citizens towards the state, unlawful conducts in criminal law are prosecuted by the state that must prove the conducts beyond reasonable doubt. Unlawful conducts in civil cases are however initiated by individual citizens who are aggrieved by the conducts and are proved on the balance of probability.

The definition of rule of law as a prescribed set of expected behaviour therefore identifies failure to conform to the laws as the basis of unlawful conduct. A person’s fault that leads to contravention of rules therefore plays the key role in determination of unlawful conduct (Goodey, 2011, p. 12- 35). Reasons why behaviour may become unlawful Behaviour refers to a person’s manner of conduct towards other people and forms the basis upon which an individual interacts with others in the society.

Since law defines legal good and bad in people’s interactions, review of behaviour and the impact of people’s behaviour help in identification of liability from people’s actions. While outlined set of rules and law directly defines unlawful conducts, environmental factors around an individual play a role in the determination of unlawful conduct towards an unlawful behaviour. As Goodey explains, the law is dependent on and operates together with factors such as “social rules, customs, roles, and habits” (Goodey, 2011, p. 17). The changing trends in the social environments due to evolutions such as globalization and technological developments therefore continually shape customs, behaviour, and social rules towards dynamism in rules of law.

As a result, technological advancement that initiates new regulatory measures may make a formerly lawful conduct unlawful. Change in social environment that defines new codes of behaviour as well as developments in financial policies in jurisdictions changes content of law. Developments of new laws through legislations as well as judicial precedents with the aim of safeguarding the interest of citizens also lead to changes in content of law. The changes in environmental rules consequently changes legality of behaviours and forms basis for a behaviour becoming unlawful (Goodey, 2011, p. 17). How the law can change Change defines a deviation from a status quo.

A change in law is therefore a move from one legal observation to a newly introduced application. Either law therefore change through introduction of new laws emanating from a variety of sources of law, modification of existing laws or nullification of the existing law. Some of the sources of dynamism in,