There are several definitions given by various authors, such as, Holland, Woodrow Wilson, Salmond, Anson etc. However, in fact, law is a body of rules which is enacted by the sovereign political authority (Legislature) in order to maintain law and order situation in a country and which is subject to sanction or legal consequence.
In this definition there are four important clauses which require interpretation from the legal point of view. The first is – a body of rules. We know that there are certain behaviors, beliefs, rules, customs, usages etc. which exist in our society. But all these do not become law. Only those rules or behaviors or beliefs etc. become laws which attain a certain degree of uniformity (uniformity means sameness). We all the people of our society agree with the view that murder, criminal misappropriation of property, fraud, cheating etc. are anti social activities and for this reason these have been included into the legislation as laws. That means, these activities have been able to attain a certain degree of uniformity. On the other hand, there are differences of opinion and ambiguities as to whether disobedience to parents, not giving begs to a beggar etc. will be treated as laws. In fact, there is no uniformity regarding these views and so these are not laws.
The second clause is – the sovereign political authority (legislature). Here the sovereign political authority is the state. But a question may arise what do we mean by sovereign? Sovereign means supreme power. Though the state is the sovereign political authority, but the state is a vague term and so it is ruled, in fact, by the Govt. We know that government has three organs, namely, executive, legislature and judiciary. Of these three organs, the executive executes the country, the legislature enacts law and the judiciary applies law. So we see that the legislature is the body which is mainly engaged in making laws. Therefore, the body of rules which are enacted by the legislature are laws.
The third clause is – to maintain law and order situation in a country. The prime object of law is to limit liberties of people and to keep them within a limitation because if there is no law, then unlimited liberty will definitely violate the rights of other persons.
The fourth clause is - sanction or legal consequence. Sanction or legal consequence means punishment, that means, penalty (which includes death penalty and imprisonment of any term),
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