Functions of Law

By Ishita Goyal
As Salmond rightly pointed out, “law is a body of principles recognized and applied by the
State in the administration of justice.” Even Hobbes and Locke recognised the positive role of
law when they said, “the end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve or enlarge
freedom and liberty.” For Kant, the aim of law is the adjustment of one’s freedom to those of
other members of the community. Bentham gave a very practical version of the purpose of law,
which according to him, is maximization of the happiness of the greatest number of the
members of the community. According to Holland, the function of law is to ensure the well-
being of the society. Thus it is something more than an institution for the protection of
individuals’ rights. From the definitions given by all such jurists, we have boiled down certain
functions that were common in all.
Functions of Law
1. Regulates conduct: Law is derived from its society. Therefore, it always enshrines the
customs and practises of that society and whenever there is a chaos in the society, law helps
in bringing back that conduct by means of punishments or orders.
2. Establishing Standards: The law is a guidepost for minimally acceptable behaviour in
society. Some activities, for instance, are crimes because society (through a legislative
body) has determined that it will not tolerate certain behaviours that injure or damage
persons or their property. For example, under a typical state law, it is a crime to cause
physical injury to another person without justification—doing so generally constitutes the
crime of assault.
3. Maintaining Order: The law—when enforced—provides order consistent with society’s
guidelines. With the changing society, the law can also be changed, by the means of
amendments. This ensures that the chaos if develops, the law shall resolve it and if it is
unable to, then it came out as new clauses and provisions to maintain the order. For
example, homosexuality is decriminalised because the society had accepted it and wanted
law to make provisions so as maintain order in the society which was disturbed when the
rights of these people were getting violated.

4. Resolving Disputes: Disputes are unavoidable in a society made of persons with different
needs, wants, values, and views. The law provides a formal means for resolving disputes—
the court system. There is a federal court system and each state has its own separate court
system. There are also various less formal means for resolving disputes—collectively
called alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Such methods of dispute resolving can be
lawsuits, arbitration, collaborative law, mediation, conciliation, negotiation and
facilitation.

5. Protecting Liberties and Rights: The judiciary has been given a sincere task of upholding
the constitution supreme and acts as a means to check the laws made by the legislature by
their power of judicial Review, the power of which is specially enumerated under the article
13 of the constitution of India One of the major aspect of the judicial review is to ensure
that all the laws passed by the parliament are in sync with the basic structure of the
constitution and are not violating the fundaments rights of the citizens. The same can be
witnessed in the practice of Triple Talaq that violated the rights of Muslim women. The
 supreme court of India took cognizance of such violation in the case Shayara Bano and ors
v. Union of India1 and declared the practise unconstitutional.
6. Bring a social change: Law is the reflection of the will and wish of the society. The law,
though, it is the product of the society is responsible for the social transformations. When
law changes the society it is the sign of beginning of the development of the society. When
society changes law it is the sign of maturity of the society. The established pattern of Inter-
human relationship between Caste Hindus and Scheduled Castes was that of touch-me-not-
ism as the same was thought to be polluting them i.e. the Caste Hindus. The standards of
conduct of Caste Hindus was brought through legal means mainly the Constitution of India,
Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 etc.

1
Writ Petition (C) No. 118 of 2016