The Law: Principles and Sources

Two questions that are not the same

Your specification asks you to do something with a law that sounds simple and is not. ⚠️ EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A PIECE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every first attempt at that question answers a different one. Asked whether a law is effective, students write about whether they think it is a good law. They explain who supports it, who objects to it, and which side they find more convincing. It reads like a proper answer. ⚠️ AND IT IS NOT AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION THAT WAS ASKED. ⭐ A LAW IS NOT JUDGED BY WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH IT. IT IS JUDGED BY WHETHER IT DOES WHAT IT WAS PASSED TO DO. Those are two genuinely different questions, and keeping them apart is the whole skill. A law can be one and not the other, in both directions. ⚠️ A LAW YOU DISLIKE MAY BE WORKING EXACTLY AS INTENDED. A LAW YOU APPROVE OF MAY BE ACHIEVING NOTHING AT ALL. Neither of those is a contradiction; they are just answers to different questions. So the first move on any evaluation question is to find out what the law was for. Every piece of legislation was passed because somebody wanted something to change. ⭐ THAT INTENDED CHANGE IS THE MEASURING STICK, and once you have it, the rest of the answer has somewhere to go: has that change happened, is there evidence that this law caused it, and what has it cost elsewhere? ⚠️ AND ONE THING THIS MODULE WILL NOT DO, DELIBERATELY. Some of the laws your specification suggests for this question are argued about seriously by reasonable people - powers to deal with terrorism, controls on protest and strike action, rules about what the media may publish. ⭐ THIS MODULE WILL NOT TELL YOU WHICH SIDE IS RIGHT ON ANY OF THEM, BECAUSE THE EXAM DOES NOT ASK YOU FOR THAT AND WILL NOT CREDIT IT. It will show you how to argue about them properly.

Where law comes from, and the two branches

Two pieces of required background in one place. Neither is what this module argues; both are what the argument is applied to.

Tap what an evaluation question wants

Tap the TWO statements that describe what "evaluate the effectiveness of this law" is actually asking for.

• Whether the change the law was passed to bring about has actually happened
• What the law has cost elsewhere, such as in rights or resources, alongside what it has achieved
• Whether you personally think the law is a good idea
• Whether most people say they support the law

Working, and disliked

A student argues that a law cannot be effective because a great many people object to it. Why does that reasoning fail?

• Because effectiveness measures whether the law is achieving what it was passed to achieve, which is a separate question from whether people approve of it
• Because public opinion is never relevant to how a law should be judged
• Because most laws are not in fact opposed by many people
• Because Parliament passed it, so it must be working

Five words for judging a law

Five terms, each defined by what it is. Nothing is evaluated here.

Match each question to what it tests

Two that follow from the method

Select the TWO statements that follow from judging a law by its purpose.

• A law can be effective and still be heavily criticised, because effectiveness and cost are separate things to weigh
• An evaluation needs evidence that the change happened, not just a claim that it should have
• If most people support a law, it is by definition effective
• Unintended consequences can be ignored, since the law was not designed to produce them

Arguing about a law you have views on

Some of the legislation this topic uses is genuinely contested, and you may well hold a firm view about it. ⚠️ A FIRM VIEW IS NOT A PROBLEM. AN UNARGUED ONE IS. ⚠️ ATTRIBUTE EVERY POSITION. Not "this law is an attack on freedom", which states one side's case as a fact. "Critics argue that the law restricts freedom of assembly" reports it accurately, and an examiner can see you know the difference between describing a position and holding it. The same applies in the other direction: "supporters argue", not "obviously". ⭐ NOW THE HABIT THAT DECIDES THE TOP BAND, AND IT IS A MARKS ISSUE BEFORE IT IS A FAIR ONE. ⚠️ GIVE BOTH SIDES THEIR STRONGEST FORM. It is easy to state the case against a law so weakly that any defence knocks it over, and just as easy to state the case for it as though nobody had ever thought about it. An answer that defeats a weak version of either side has argued against nothing, and examiners see it immediately. Then reach a judgement, because the command word asks for one. ⚠️ "THERE ARE ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES" IS NOT A CONCLUSION, IT IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE QUESTION. Say which considerations you found weightier and why. Two smaller things that protect the marks. ⚠️ DO NOT INVENT DETAIL ABOUT A LAW. If you are unsure exactly what a statute provides, write what it broadly does rather than reaching for a specific you half remember. A confident wrong provision costs more than a careful general one. ⚠️ AND KEEP EXAMPLES GENERAL AND BRIEF. You are evaluating a law, not recounting a case. The argument does not need vividness, and a student reading it may have been closer to the subject than you know.

One evaluation, done in four moves

Take a law requiring drivers and passengers to wear seat belts, and run the method on it. MOVE ONE: WHAT WAS IT PASSED TO DO? ⭐ THIS IS ALWAYS FIRST, AND IT IS THE MOVE MOST ANSWERS SKIP. The purpose here is uncontroversial to state: to reduce deaths and serious injuries in road collisions. Now there is a measuring stick, and everything that follows has a standard to be judged against. MOVE TWO: HAS THAT CHANGE HAPPENED? This is a question about evidence rather than opinion. Deaths and serious injuries in collisions are recorded, so the question can actually be answered, and that is worth noticing: not every law is this easy to measure, which is itself a finding worth writing down when it is true. MOVE THREE: CAN THIS LAW BE CREDITED WITH IT? ⚠️ HERE IS WHERE A CAREFUL ANSWER SEPARATES ITSELF. Cars have also become safer, roads have changed and medical treatment has improved over the same period. A change happening after a law is not proof the law caused it, and saying so shows an examiner you understand what evidence can and cannot establish. MOVE FOUR: WHAT HAS IT COST? Supporters argue the requirement is a small imposition for a large benefit. Critics argue that it restricts what an adult may choose to do with their own safety, and that the state should be slow to compel people for their own good. ⚠️ BOTH OF THOSE ARE SERIOUS POSITIONS AND THIS MODULE DOES NOT SETTLE BETWEEN THEM. ⭐ NOW LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE. Not a list of views, but a structure: a purpose, evidence about whether it was met, honesty about what the evidence can prove, and the cost on the other side of the ledger. ⚠️ THAT STRUCTURE WORKS ON ANY LAW YOUR SPECIFICATION OFFERS, INCLUDING THE ONES PEOPLE ARGUE ABOUT MOST, and it works precisely because it never needed you to agree with the law to begin with.

Order the moves of an evaluation

Put the steps in order, from being given a law to reaching a judgement about it.

• Establish what the law was passed to change
• Look for evidence about whether that change has happened
• Ask whether the law itself can fairly be credited with it
• Set out what the law has cost, in rights, resources or unintended effects
• Weigh the achievement against the cost and state which you found weightier, and why

Assemble a sentence that argues rather than asserts

Build a sentence evaluating a law that reduced a problem while attracting serious objection.

The evaluating a law run

Five questions on judging legislation and on the law it applies to. Three lives.

Complete the law and legislation facts

Law made by Parliament and written down as an Act is _____. A decision in an earlier case that later courts must follow is _____. The extent to which something achieves the purpose it was created for is its _____. An effect of a law that those who passed it did not set out to produce is an _____.

Three evaluations to repair

Three pieces of student writing about a contested law. In each case the mark is in the method, not in which side is taken.

• An answer to "evaluate the effectiveness of this law" consists entirely of arguments for and against whether the law should exist. How would you redirect it?
• A student writes: "This law is a disgrace and takes away our freedom." They feel strongly and the point is arguable. What needs changing?
• An answer notes that the problem the law targeted has fallen sharply since it was passed, and concludes the law has been highly effective. Is anything missing?

Explain how to judge whether a law works

A classmate has been asked to evaluate the effectiveness of a law and has written a page about whether they agree with it. Write them an explanation of what the question wants and how to answer it.

• Explain the difference between asking whether a law works and asking whether you agree with it, and why they can give opposite answers
• Explain why establishing what the law was passed to change has to come first
• Explain why evidence that a change happened is not by itself evidence that the law caused it
• Explain why the costs of a law belong in the answer even when it has achieved what it set out to do
• Explain how the principles the legal system rests on, such as equality before the law, can be used as criteria rather than recited as facts
• Finish by explaining how to write about a law people disagree about, including why both sides should be given their strongest form and why a conclusion is still required