It may seem obvious, but what is law? Law, or legal studies, comes into contact with almost every area of human life, touching upon issues relating to business, economics, politics, the environment, human rights, international relations and trade.
law, the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct of a community that are recognized as binding by the community. Enforcement of the body of rules is through a controlling authority. Harvard Law School: Dane Hall.
Law is a system of rules created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and the art of justice.
In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected. In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen by the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.
Direct democracy refers to the system in which citizens has the right to take part in the decision making process. On the contrary, indirect democracy implies a democracy in which the citizens choose their representative, to actively participate in the administration of the government and act on their behalf.
The opposite of a substantive democracy is a procedural democracy, which is where the relevant forms of democracy exist but are not actually managed democratically.
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected persons represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy.
Procedural democracy, with its centering of electoral processes as the basis of democratic legitimacy, is often contrasted with substantive or participatory democracy, which centers the equal participation of all groups in society in the political process as the basis of legitimacy.
Liberal democracy emphasises the separation of powers, an independent judiciary and a system of checks and balances between branches of government. Multi-party systems with at least two persistent, viable political parties are characteristic of liberal democracies.
representative democracyThe most common form of democracy is representative democracy. Modern democracies involve such large number of people that it is physically impossible for them to sit together and take a collective deicision.
