What is Law? A Collective Approach of Natural Law and Positive Law

INTRODUCTION

It is very difficult to define the term law, because when a term is being defined it implies the fixing of limits and boundaries of that particular term with precision. Law is not capable of being defined it can only be explained. Some people see law as a code to regulate the human behavior, while some see law as a instrument to bring social change or means to achieve justice. Therefore we can conclude that different people have different point of view regarding.   Thus these different point of views on law came to be know as various school of law such as Natural School of Law, Positive School of Law etc. These schools of law had different pint of views regarding law, but since law being so vast in nature these school of thoughts failed to completely define law and there remained loopholes in their understanding of law.

Natural Law

The Natural School of Law argues that law should be based on a higher law dictated by reason. That is law must satisfy a higher test of fairness. Natural Law is said to be the law of reason,it is also frequently used to refer to the use of reason and analyze human nature. In simple words natural law can be understood as the law of reason. That whenever a competent authority is making a law it should be backed by a reason, which is fair and not arbitrary. That is the law should be justified only with help of reason and no other tool. But the Natural Law has its shortcomings as well. That is if a law is being made in accordance with natural law it sometimes leads to a deadlock situation. That if there fair or correct reasons to make a law and then there are fair or correct reasons not to make a law, then in that situation, both the parties are correct and there is a deadlock and there is a block in the formation of  a law. For example marital rape, we know that martial rape does happen in our society and there is no particular law that deals with it. The arguments put forward in support of a different law for marital rape are that it is a rape, and it is difficult to report and thus there should a different law for it. But other side of the story is what if the rape has actually not happened, but the wife is only pretending that it happened. And the husband who is innocent is given punishment.   Positive Law The basic thinking of positive law is that the law is the command of the sovereign . That is whatever the government declares in the name of law  is law. That is for example the passes the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, now this is an example of law.  This understanding is very simple, but it is not completely accurate. The positive law does not take into account the whether the command of sovereign is just or unjust. Law must be just that a fair reason must be given for the law, because law is not for the betterment of the society and not for fulfilling the wishes of the people who make laws. For example the government passes law stating that only persons above the height of 6 feet will be allowed to give UPSC examination. This kind of law is unjust as it denies the people who are below 6 feet the chance to give UPSC examination.   CONCLUSION The question what is law can be more clearly understood if we see it from the prospective of both natural law and positive law. That is we combine both the theories in order to overcome their shortcomings. Thus we can understand law as a command of an entity to which people follow willingly and that command can trace its source from a higher command which backed a logical reason. In this way both school of laws are satisfied.