Features of Law

Once law is defined, it helps to pin down the recurring features that every rule must have before it can properly be called "law." These features are what a student can use, almost like a checklist, to tell a legal rule apart from a moral guideline or a social custom.

1. It is a body of rules of conduct. Law consists of general rules that tell people what they may, must, or must not do — it is not a single isolated order but an organised system of such rules.

2. It is made or recognised by the State. A rule becomes "law" only when a competent authority — Parliament, a State Legislature, or a court through binding precedent — either creates it or formally recognises it. A privately agreed "house rule" between friends is not law, however strictly it is followed.

3. It is enforced by a sovereign authority. Law carries the backing of the State's coercive machinery — courts, police, and the wider administrative apparatus — so that it can be enforced even against an unwilling person.

4. It has a sanction attached. Breach of a legal rule attracts a consequence prescribed by the State — a fine, imprisonment, compensation, or some other remedy — which is what gives law its binding force, unlike a moral rule whose only "penalty" is social disapproval.

5. It applies uniformly within its jurisdiction. Law does not bend for individual persons; the same rule binds every person or class of persons it is meant to cover, without arbitrary exception — this is what makes law predictable and fair.

6. It regulates human conduct in society. Law exists to organise the relationships between people living together — their rights, duties, and obligations towards one another and towards the State. …