rule, therefore, has to designate a class or category of facts as the target of its
regulation.
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The types of facts that a legal rule regulates are delineated by the elements of
the rule. Each element of
a rule represents a required fact. It delineates a
specific class or type of fact
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being the facts that it seeks to regulate. In this
way the elements of a particular law mark out the catchment area of the law –
this constitutes the territory that it will rule.
In the model deployed here, in accordance with a standard labelling system,
elements are labelled “Element” and numbered 1, 2 3 and so on. The last
element in the list is designated “n”. The sole purpose of the numbers is to
differentiate one element from another –
they do not represent values or
preferences.
On this system of labelling and numbering the elements of a rule consists of
Element 1, Element 2 and so on to the last element on the list, Element n. Thus
the range of elements in any rules
consists of Elements 1-n. Taken together,
these elements define the composite or overall class of facts to which a rule
applies. In other words,
the overall class of facts to which a rule applies is
simply an aggregation of all of the subclasses or specific classes of facts
delineated by the elements of the rule.
Consequences
Having defined the types of facts to which it applies, a legal rule has to specify
the means by which it will regulate these facts (after all this is the basic reason
that a legislature will have enacted it). In this analysis the part of the rule which
regulates facts is labelled Consequences. (Strictly this should be written
Consequences 1-n but this extended form is necessary only when attention is
directed to the details of consequences, which is not the case here.)
This label is used for an obvious reason. When a legal rule applies to the facts
which it designates it brings legal consequences. One example of
consequences, from criminal law, is that a person can be punished by a fine or
imprisonment if they commit a crime. An example from civil law consists of
___________________
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While the general proposition is that legal rules provide consequences for
facts, some rules –
in constitutional law and administrative law -
provide
consequences for other laws.
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It is, however, possible for a provision in a statute to apply to a specific
person or body or situation. An obvious example is a provision that establishes a
body that is in the form: “This section now establishes a corporation named the
Schools Commission”. Another example is an Act of Attainder. This is discussd in
this chapter in the section entitled “Rule of Law”.
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