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The Place of Form in the Fundamentals of Law[Note 1. This is a revised version of the annual Robert ...]
Author(s) -
Summers Robert S.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9337.00174
Subject(s) - scope (computer science) , construct (python library) , law , identity (music) , democracy , sociology , law and economics , political science , computer science , philosophy , politics , programming language , aesthetics
The author explains that there is scope for a general theory about the nature and place of form in the fundamentals of law. Form organizes the institutions, rules and other varieties of law, and the system as a whole. All such constructs have non‐formal elements, too, but form unifies each construct and provides its criteria of identity. Appropriate form makes a system of law possible. It also tends to beget good content in the law. It is indispensable to the basic needs of a legal system, and when such an end is organizational, as with democracy, liberty, and the rule of law, form is end as well as means.