In our legal system, of which I am the legislator, it is clear that there are in fact three different legal forms. One is formal written law, the constitution; The law written on the document on my wall. Second, there is the law for the community that I have explained to all my subjects, which is that the only color of lipstick allowed on the sixth floor is blue. Third, there is the non-public law on the secret document that I keep in my desk drawer, which says that government officials are exempt from the lipstick act. All three are legal laws created by the legislature,7 because they are created by the sovereign (legislator) who, by recognizing the fundamental norm that establishes this legislative power, is legitimized by the community concerned to create laws. Although statutory law differs from common law and administrative law, both can become law if they are formally written and enacted by a legislative body, such as a declaratory statute. A law means that a bill has been formally drafted and passed by a legislative body. Laws can be implemented at different levels of government, including the federal and state levels. Statutory laws are subject to constitutional constraints.
In order to appreciate this distinction, we must first clarify what we mean by “legal order”.6 For Kelsen, the legal system is a dynamic system of valid legal norms that are valid due to the fact that they were created according to a certain basic rule or norm (1967/2001, 30-32). It is the fundamental norm that establishes the legislative power of the legal system (1967/2001, 8-9; 1949/2005, 115-117; Lindahl 2013, 146-155). Laws enacted by the U.S. Congress are federal laws. A federal bill is introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate as a public bill. The bill will be studied by a special committee, held for hearings and debated. These activities help ensure that the law is valid and acceptable. After review, the House of Representatives and Senate will vote on the law. When the law is passed, it is presented to the president, who can either reject it (called a veto) or approve it. Subsequently, the law received an official number and title and was published in the law books of the United States Code. The legal definition of law is the category of laws officially promulgated by a legislator.
In the United States, statutory or state-level laws may be enacted by state legislatures and signed by the governor or both houses of Congress and signed by the president. So who makes the laws? At a minimum, legislative laws are enacted by a legislative body, which can vary considerably depending on the context. In addition, statutes are adopted by the legislative body and often approved by a member of the executive. An example of a legal law would be the Texas Anti-Gay Law. This state law was eventually struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court for violating the Fourteenth Amendment`s equality clause. A real example in modern society of an unwritten law for the community that contradicts formal written law (B2ii) would be the Dutch law on soft drugs. Under the formal Dutch law, the “Opium Act” (A), it is prohibited, among other things, to sell hashish, weed and magic mushrooms, which are classified as “soft drugs”.12 The same law determines which executive branch is responsible for the enforcement of this law13 and how enforcement is to be carried out.14 Anyone who sells drugs may be liable to imprisonment for two to five months or a fine.15 Like most people, Dutch citizens (and also non-Dutch) know that “cafes” thrive in the Netherlands, selling all kinds of hashish, weed and magic mushrooms.
This is not due to the inefficiency of the legislator; It is the unwritten law of the Dutch legislator that allows the sale of soft drugs by coffee shops under certain conditions. This policy is called agedoogbeleidâ (B). Information about this policy of tolerance can be found in several places, for example in academic writings16 and on the government website17, although it directly contradicts formal written law.18 Returning to the situation in Rwanda as described in the introduction, we could now say something more significant about the legal situation of Rwandan journalists. Instead of arguing that every journalist has the de jure right to freely express his or her opinion, but that this right is violated de facto, we can now understand the legal situation as follows: Rwanda has a written and formal law guaranteeing freedom of the press and freedom of information (A). However, there is another repealed unwritten law for the community in Rwanda, which states that any journalist who writes critically about the current government will be prosecuted (B) (see Waldorf 2007, 405-411). This allows us to better understand the country`s legal law, which in turn could influence international policy, for example. These laws are often codified, meaning they are numbered, collected and indexed in one place. Once the law is created, the government`s judiciary interprets and applies it by applying it to court proceedings. However, the judiciary cannot legislate. The current theory also differs from a theory of legal sociology. It is, in fact, a theory of normative jurisprudence and not sociological jurisprudence or the sociology of law. It is not about observing actual human behaviour, but about discussing how the law influences what individuals actually do or how they perceive themselves; rather, it aims at “a structural analysis of the law as a system of valid norms” (Kelsen 1949/2005, 162-163).
It discusses in part attitudes toward law when we study law for the community, but does not question whether or not these attitudes influence human behavior. The study of legal law focuses on the standards laid down by legislative authorities and not on models of actual conduct (Kelsen 1949/2005, 163).29 Of course, lawyers work mainly with written law. However, almost all lawyers should be familiar with legal law, as they will discover it at some point in their career. Lawyers working in specialized fields should also be familiar with written law, especially when it comes to laws that apply to their area of expertise. Legal law can be complex. There are many types of legal laws, and lawyers need to be able to discuss them in detail and argue for one interpretation or another. You must also have a working knowledge of the precedents that have been set to challenge these laws. 5. For a definition of `statutory law`, I follow the judgment in Kelsen, which defines written law as `law created by means other than custom, namely by legislative, judicial or administrative acts or by legal acts, in particular by treaties and (international) treaties` (1949/2005, 115). As such, I extend the semantics of “statutory law” to include all laws created by the legislature, written and unwritten, public and non-public. This probably traces the meaning of the term back to its original meaning, see footnotes 7 and 8.
Lawyers must be extremely astute when it comes to language. Because they are responsible for refining the way laws are written, they must use words in a way that is precise and expresses the exact meaning. A possible example of unwritten non-public law (C2) could be the rules-based authorization for certain senior party officials to take public funds and use them for their personal benefit, which is supposed to happen and/or has happened in Uganda. A recent report by Human Rights Watch and Yale Law School argues that corruption in Uganda, which benefits senior government officials, is in fact allowed by lawmakers. They imply the existence of an underlying, unwritten, non-public rule when they argue that “the ears of the evidence suggest that Uganda`s current political system is built on patronage and that ultimately high-level corruption is rewarded rather than punished” (Lowenstein 2013). Indeed, the report is a good example of how the always implicit de jure/de facto distinction obscures the real legal situation of finance and corruption, in this case in Uganda. All the report can say is that there is a law (A) and that what the law says de facto does not happen. For example, according to the report, one thing the best lawyers have in common is a passion for the law.
They have the ability to change the fabric of society, which means it`s important to have a specific cause to defend. It is important to understand the different types of laws before deciding which ones to specialize in. For example, statutory law should not be confused with common law or administrative law. These three types of laws differ considerably. One of the main functions of a lawyer is to cooperate with the legislature of the government.