Model for Organising Law
There is not really a combined model for organising law. Instead there is a
separate model for each task although it is sometimes convenient to refer to
these together as a model for organising law.
Macro Analysis
To understand macro structure it is necessary to appreciate that most legal
rules do not exist in isolation, but are legally or functionally related to some
other rules, so that together they constitute an area of law or are part of
the
same statute. For example, most of the substantive rules of contract law
together determine what agreements are recognised as legally binding
contracts, and then determine how an injured party can obtain redress if the
other party does not perform the contract.
Macro analysis, therefore, involves identifying the relationships between
individual rules in an area of law or a statute because each rule will generally
relate to one or more other rules. Macro structure gives the overall framework
and purpose of an area of law. This gives a perspective on law and makes it
easier to understand and to work with.
Micro Analysis
To understand micro analysis, we must appreciate that law is made for one
purpose, and one purpose only. Law is made to change the world. The most
obvious manifestation of this purpose is that law is made to apply to facts and
thereby bring legal consequences to the parties involved. For example, the
accused is guilty of a crime or the defendant has committed a tort.
There is, though, a qualification to this. In a few cases law provides legal
consequences to other laws rather than to facts.
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For the most part, however,
we focus here on the more common situation where law provides legal
consequences to facts. In any case, once appropriate adjustments are made,
what we say about law that applies to facts is largely relevant in those
situations when law applies to other laws.
Because law regulates and thus changes the world, almost every legal rule has
a standard structure, which consists of three components –
elements,
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The areas where law provides legal consequences for other law are
constitutional law and administrative law. This is illustrated by the doctrine of
ultra vires. (i) Constitutional Law. A statute can be outside the power of a
legislature. Such a statute is not valid. This part of constitutional law applies to
statutes to determine whether they are valid or invalid. (ii) Administrative Law.
Ultra vires will invalidate the exercise of an executive power that is made outside
the letter or spirit of the enabling statute.
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