EXPECTATIONS

• What do you expect from me?

• What do you hope to learn?
• What were you told?
• My Expectations/Rules of the class; Respect,
Participation, attendance, exercise completion
and timely handing in of assignments
THE IDEA (CONCEPT) OF LAW
Determining your understanding of the law.
What does the law mean to you?
What is your definition of law?

Law is an instrument which regulates human

conduct/behavior.
Law means Justice, Morality, Reason, Order, and Righteous
from the view point of the society.
Law means Statutes, Acts, Rules, Regulations, Orders, and
Ordinances from point of view of legislature. Law means
Rules of court, Decrees, Judgment, Orders of courts, and
Injunctions from the point of view of Judges.
• Different groups of people and how they interpret the law
• How have other people defined and interpreted the law?
• Understanding the views of different scholars who identify
with various schools of thought?
• How they differ from each other and how we can link them
with law in the Ugandan context.

• These views are subscribed to by people in a particular

school of thought/jurisprudence. These school of
thoughts/jurisprudence can also be rightly referred to as
the different theories of law.
There are a lot of theories of law but only a few popular
ones would be outlined.
 Legal Positivism
Schools of thought
• Austin’s definition of law”
• According to Austin, a law, in the strict sense is a
general command of the sovereign individual or the
sovereign body issued to those in subjectivity and
enforced by the physical power of the state.
• Or “law is aggregate of rules set by men politically
superior or sovereign to men as politically subject.”
• Austin says, “A law is command which obliges a person
or persons to a course of conduct; making law as a
command of sovereign backed by sanction.

• Hans kelsen and H.L.A Hart

 Legal Realism:

• The scholars under this school of thought urge that law should be
seen as it is or as it is done in the law court, not as it ought to be or
anything else. They argue that what transpires in the law court or
what the judges do to arrive at their judgments and those
judgments are the law. That is case laws.
• “law is what the court has decided in respect of any particular set of
facts; prior to such a decision, the opinion of lawyers is only a guess
as to what the court will decide, and this cannot be treated as law
unless the court so decides by its judicial pronouncement”. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Roscoe Pound
• Realism in its generic sense or in the art sense of it, the effort by
artists to represent objects truthfully as they appear without any
speculative or artificial details.
•
 The natural school:
• This school of thought where it is believed that law originates from
a supernatural being that guides in identifying right from wrong.
• It has many proponents, ranging from Thomas Aquinas, Socrates,
Aristotle, Cicero, John Finn, St. Augustine etcetera, who believe that
there is a universal law from a supernatural being which is
discovered by reason or rationalization. It also derives its assertion
from the notion that nature is perfect, and humans should behave
and be guided by it in their distinction between what is good and
evil.
According to Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274 BC), law is an ordinance
of reason for the common good, made by him(God) who has care of
the community. He went ahead to state that, “the light of reason is
placed by nature, and thus by God in every man to guide him in his
acts”.
•
 Historical school:

• This school proposes that law is that which is

made in accordance with the previous
experiences of a particular people. That before a
law is accepted, that it must not be alien to the
people for which it is made; rather, it should be
made from their history or past so as to mirror
their interest.

• Von Savigny
 Sociological school:
• They state that law should be functional and liberal in such
a sense that it should always be ready to accommodate the
societal development/changes. This school has proponents
like Roscoe Pound, Duguit etcetera. They are of the view
that law should be made or studied in accordance with
what it does or its effect in the society.
Roscoe Pound proposed that law should be functional and
liberal in such a sense that it should always be ready to
accommodate the societal development/changes; that law
should not just be a systematic or formalized rule that is
imposed on people.
•
 THE LANGUAGE OF LAW AND
SPEAKING IN COURT
• Legislation Terminology
• Principal Legislation: Bill, Act of Parliament,
Statute, Ordinance, Decree
• Subsidiary Legislation: Statutory Instrument (S.I),
Rule, Regulation, Bye Law
• Process of Law Making:
• Enactment (Statutes and Delegated Legislation)
• Amendment of law
• Revision/Reprint
• Citation of Cases
• (i) Law Reports Nomenclature
• Students are advised to refer to the official citation in Uganda and East
Africa of periodicals and journals.
• The following abbreviations should be noted:
•
• AC – Appeal Cases Law Reports (England)
• AD- Appellate Division (South Africa)
• All E.R – All England Law Reports (England)
• All N. R – All Nigeria Law Reports
• ALR – African Law Reports
• BCLR – Butterworths Constitutional Law Reports
• CA – Court of Appeal
• CCR – Criminal Cases Reports
• ) Parties in Legal Disputes:
• (a) Prosecution / Defence
• Prosecutor / Accused – Prisoner
• (b) Plaintiff / Defendant
• Complainant / Respondent
• SOURCES AND RECEPTION OF LAW IN UGANDA
• Non-legal factors facilitating the reception
• The Berlin Conference of 1884
• Proof of Customary Law:
• Customary Law and the Repugnancy Clause:
• The Law Applied in Uganda:
• Legal/political history of Uganda
• In relation to a particular court
• CLASSIFICATION/SOURCES OF LAW APPLIED
• – Statutory law – Principle and Subsidiary
• – Common law
• – Case law
• – Customary law
•
• COURTS AND COURT SYSTEM IN UGANDA
•
• ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (ADR)
•
•
 WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF LAW
• What do you think law is?
• What do you hope to learn?
• How does the society view law?

• Rules of conduct
• First it is used to mean “legal order”. It represents the regime of adjusting
relations, and ordering conduct by the systematic application of the force of
organized political society.

• Secondly, law means the whole body of legal Percepts which exists in a politically
organized society.
•
• Thirdly, law is used to mean all official control in a politically organized society.
This lead to actual administration of Justice as contrasted with the authoritive
material for the Guidance of Judicial action. Law in its narrowest or strict sense is
the civil law or the law of the land.
 Functions of law

• Law set up rules and regulations for society so that we can enjoy freedom, gives
Justice to those who were wronged, and it set up that it protects us from our own
Government.
•
• Most importantly the law also provides a mechanism to resolve disputes
arising from those duties and rights and allows parties to enforce promises in a
court of law
•
According to Corley and Reed (1986) law is a body of rules of action or conduct
Prescribed by controlling authority, and having legal binding forces.(control)
•
• Laws are created because it helps prevent chaos from happening within the
business environment and as well as society. In business law sets guide lines
regarding employment regulatory, compliance, even inter office regulations.(
preventative)
•
 JEREMY BENTHAM

• Jeremy Bentham introduced an ethical theory holding that actions are

morally right if they tend to promote happiness or pleasure (and morally
wrong if they tend to promote unhappiness or pain) among all those
affected by them.

• He defined law as;

• “A law may be defined as an assemblage of signs declarative of a violation
conceived or adopted by the sovereign in a state, concerning the conduct
to be observed in a certain case by a certain person or class of persons,
who in the case in question are supposed to be subject to his power: such
volition trusting for its accomplishment to the exception of certain events
which it is intended such declaration should upon occasion be a means of
bringing to pass, and the prospect of which it is intended should act as a
motive upon those whose conduct is in question.”
• In simple terms a given rule is a law of a given system
if, and only if, it bears the right relation to an exercise
of sovereign legislative power( backed by a sovereign
power and this power has to be obeyed.
• Individualism Utilitarianism;
• Bentham’s legal philosophy is called ‘utilitarian
individualism’. He was an individualist. He said that the
function of law is to emancipate the individual from
the bondage and restraint upon his freedom. Once the
individual was made free, he himself shall be looking
after his welfare.
• Law, according to Austin, is the command of the sovereign backed by threat of
sanction. Commands are necessarily general prescriptions that signify a desire of
the commanding sovereign that an action be done or not done.

• SALIENT POINTS OF AUSTIN’S THEORY

• Austin’s theory prominently brings out the following four points;

• That every law is a species of command;

That all positive laws are command of the sovereign either directly or indirectly;
That every law prescribes a course of conduct; and
That every law has for its sanction the physical force of the state.
•