Characteristics of the Law

The law is a norm or set of norms that are issued by an authority; In this sense, the authority can be of a different order, be it monarchical (monarch or king), religious (priest or patriarch), governmental (President, congress or legislative body).

In this sense, it is necessary to distinguish between moral laws and legal laws, because although they are all laws, in some there is a will and in others there is none.

There are other types of laws, which can be scientific:

• Physical
• Chemical
• Natural
• Biological etc.

And these are in general positive terms and refer to the universality of physical phenomena and laws of logic that make them definitive as long as there is no contradiction.

Main characteristics of the law:

Coercivity.- Laws are coercive, that is, they are applied by force. Although not all laws are coercive, the vast majority are, especially those that are positive and issued by authorities with public power; The non-coercive norms are the moral ones, which require the will of the person to be applied and if he does not want to do it there is no way to be forced to do it.

Generality.- The laws are for all people, it is clear that they are not all the people on the planet, but they are all those who are in the legal entities that it covers, (its jurisdiction). And this jurisdiction is applied through socio-political provisions and their respective divisions:

1. Continents
2. Countries
3. state
4. Municipalities
5. Peoples, etc.

The laws tell individuals what they cannot do, so they generally do what they want as long as the law does not contradict it. Authorities are subjected to doing what the law tells them, and depending on the policy of each country they cannot exceed their functions to the law, but there are countries such as the United States where it is applied at the discretion of the judge or the judge may depart from the parameters of the law and issue decisions by his or her own personal criteria. juries.

Abstraction.- This refers to the fact that it applies to people in a general or indeterminate way, as long as they remain within the jurisdiction of the law. This is also subject to the circumstances and assumptions of each law or regulation.

Impersonality.- When we refer to the impersonality of a law, we must understand that laws are not created to judge a specific person, because if so, would have to establish a law for each inhabitant of the earth, and in this way the law would lose the quality of government, universality and order, to be only coercion particular.

Mandatory.- The obligation implies the obligation of each individual to do or omit what the law establishes, even in many countries the concept "ignorance of the law does not exclude of its application ”, to which we can interpret that if a person does not know that he should not steal by law, he does not remove the circumstance of being tried by the corresponding law for committing the illicit.

Justice.- Although justice does more for the judge, who should meditate and understand the circumstances, the law has in Many of the cases implicit justice (which in the definition of the jurist Ulpiano is “to give each person what they corresponds ”). This applies implicitly in the law and can or should be interpreted by the corresponding lawyer.

Contradiction.- This is an obvious or logical quality in the laws, since they generally have contradictions with higher laws or are unfair at the discretion of the judges and magistrates. In this sense, they must be studied by colleges of scholars in law (Ministers, magistrates, judges and authorities), so that they resolve these contradictions in favor of the common good.

Order.- Laws have the characteristic of seeking the order of coexistence, for which they will abide by majority criteria (if there is no injustice) or social criteria, so that it is in adequate circumstances to govern the society.

Physical laws and their characteristics:

Regarding physical laws, there are their own characteristics:

Definitiveness.- This is established when after multiple tests these become definitive because there is no contradiction in the phenomena.

Generality.- These rules are also general, and their application, because they are scientific in nature, is universal and the contradiction is due to new discoveries that destroy them.