wrong conduct, which a law seeks to prevent, punish or provide
compensation for. Consequently, elements of a tort and of a crime define the
scope of this conduct. Contract law makes agreements enforceable; it
therefore determines what constitutes an agreement, and identifies the class of
such agreements that the law will enforce. Social security law, to furnish
another example, will identify the category of need for which the law provides
some relief by way of payment of a benefit or provision of a service.
There is no obvious detailed classification that amalgamates these options, but
to the extent that there is a general statement it is this. Variation in the content
of laws will come from two major sources -
variations in the conduct
delineated by the
elements and thus targeted by the law, and variations in the
parties involved in the conduct, namely the person who does this conduct and
the person on whom this conduct is done. So, when a legislature determines
the elements of a law, it decides the conduct and parties on which the law will
operate.
Consequences
Besides elements, a legal rule is also constituted by the consequences that it
designates to alight on the facts to which it applies. Consequences have two
major components. One is the type of consequences provided. The other is
the parties - the party for whose benefit these consequences are imposed, and
the party who has the burden imposed by the consequences.
Types of Consequences
Laws can impose any of a range of consequences on parties. These are
explained in later discussion.
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Parties
Consequences imposed by a law typically do something to a party, sometimes
at the expense of a second party. For example, in a statutory tort, a defendant
who has been found guilty is usually liable to pay damages, and to pay them to
the plaintiff whom they have injured.
Illustration
To illustrate in a practical way how there is a choice as to the content of a law,
let us look at what an Education Act might cover:
(1)
Conduct. This is the conduct delineated and targeted by the law. There
are numbers types of conduct which an Education Act might regulate, for
example whether school is optional or compulsory, the hours in the school
day, the days on which teaching occurs, the syllabus, how classes are taught,
minimum and maximum numbers for classes and so on.
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Chapter 11 Effects. See also Bennion (1979) and Summers (1971).
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