Making laws that man cannot and will not obey serves to despise all law. In a republic, it is very important that the people respect the laws, because if we throw them to the wind, what will happen to a civilian government? The most prominent economic analyst of the law is the 1991 Nobel laureate, Ronald Coase, whose first major paper, The Nature of the Firm (1937), argues that the reason for the existence of corporations (corporations, partnerships, etc.) is the existence of transaction costs. [230] Rational individuals negotiate through bilateral contracts in open markets until transaction costs mean that using firms to produce things is cheaper. His second major paper, The Problem of Social Cost (1960), argued that if we lived in a world without transaction costs, people would negotiate among themselves to create the same allocation of resources, regardless of how a court ruled in property disputes. [231] Coase used the example of a boring case called Sturges v Bridgman, in which a noisy confectionery manufacturer and a discreet doctor were neighbours and went to court to see who needed to move. [210] Coase testified that regardless of whether the judge ruled that the confectionery manufacturer had to stop using its machines or that the doctor had to live with it, they could enter into a mutually beneficial agreement on the movers, achieving the same resource allocation result. Only the presence of transaction costs can prevent this. [232] The law should therefore foresee what would happen and be guided by the most effective solution. The idea is that law and regulation are not as important or effective in helping people as lawyers and government planners believe.

[233] Coase and others like him wanted a change in approach to shifting the burden of proof of positive effects to a government that intervened in the market by analyzing the cost of action. [234] The philosophy of law is commonly referred to as jurisprudence. Normative jurisprudence asks, „What should be fair?” while analytical jurisprudence asks, „What is law?” The idea of the rule of law has been around for a long time. Many societies, including our own, have institutions and procedures in place to try to make the rule of law a reality. These institutions and procedures have helped define what constitutes the rule of law and what is necessary to achieve it. In a nation, law can be used to (1) maintain peace, (2) maintain the status quo, (3) preserve individual rights, (4) protect minorities from majorities, (5) promote social justice, and (6) ensure orderly social change. Some jurisdictions serve these purposes better than others. While a nation ruled by an authoritarian government can keep the peace and maintain the status quo, it can also oppress minorities or political opponents (e.g., Burma, Zimbabwe, or Iraq under Saddam Hussein). Under colonialism, European nations often forced peace in countries whose borders were created somewhat arbitrarily by the same European nations. For several centuries before the twentieth century, empires were built by Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. In terms of the functions of law, the empire may have kept the peace—largely by force—but it changed the status quo and rarely promoted Indigenous rights or social justice within the colonized nation. However, the system has become too systematized – too rigid and inflexible.

As a result, over time, more and more citizens asked the King to repeal the common law and, on behalf of the King, the Lord Chancellor decided to do what was only in one case. Since the time of Sir Thomas More, the first barrister to be appointed Lord Chancellor, a systematic body of justice has developed alongside the rigid common law and has developed its own Court of Chancery. Initially, fairness was often criticized as unpredictable, varying according to the length of the chancellor`s foot. [101] Over time, the courts have developed sound principles, particularly under Lord Eldon. [102] In 19th century England and 1937 in the United States, the two systems were merged. There have been several attempts to create „a generally acceptable definition of the law.” In 1972, Baron Hampstead proposed that such a definition could not be made. [30] McCoubrey and White said that the question „What is the law?” has no simple answer. [31] Glanville Williams stated that the meaning of the word „law” depends on the context in which it is used. He said, for example, that „primitive customary law” and „common law” are contexts in which the word „law” has two different and irreconcilable meanings.

[32] Thurman Arnold said that it is obvious that it is impossible to define the word „law” and that it is equally obvious that the struggle for the definition of this word should never be abandoned. [33] Presumably, it is not necessary to define the word „law” (e.g., „let`s forget the general and get on with business”). [34] Civil law is the legal system used today in most countries of the world. In civil law, the sources recognized as authoritative are mainly legislation – especially codifications in constitutions or laws adopted by the government – and customary law. [83] Codifications date back millennia, with an early example being the Babylonian Codex Hammurabi. Modern civil law systems are essentially derived from the legal systems promulgated by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the 6th century and adopted in the 11th century. It was rediscovered by Italy in the nineteenth century. [84] Roman law at the time of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire was highly procedural and lacked a professional legal class.

[85] Instead, a lay judge, iudex, was chosen to rule. Decisions were not systematically published, so that any case law that developed was obscured and almost unrecognized. [86] Each case should be redecided from state laws, reflecting the (theoretical) insignificance of judges` decisions for future cases in today`s civil justice systems. From 529 to 534 AD, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I codified and consolidated Roman law, so that only one-twentieth of the mass of legal texts of the past remained. [87] This corpus became known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. As one legal historian wrote, „Justinian consciously looked back at the golden age of Roman law and sought to bring it back to the peak it had reached three centuries earlier.” [88] The Justinian Codex remained in force in the East until the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Western Europe, on the other hand, relied on a mixture of Theodosian codices and Germanic customary law until the Justinian codex was rediscovered in the 11th century and researchers at the University of Bologna used it to interpret their own laws. [89] Civil codifications closely based on Roman law spread throughout Europe, as well as some influences of religious laws such as canon law, until the Enlightenment; In the 19th century, the France with the Civil Code and Germany with the Civil Code modernized their legal systems. Both codes have strongly influenced not only the legal systems of continental European countries (e.g. Greece), but also the Japanese and Korean legal traditions. [90] [91] Today, countries with civil justice systems range from Russia] and Turkey to most Central and Latin American countries. [92] The independence of the judiciary means that judges are independent of political pressure and influence in their decisions.

An independent judiciary is essential to uphold the rule of law. Judges should not be influenced by political party, private interest or public opinion when asked to determine what the law requires.