4.3 Functions of Law

What law actually does, day to day. The standard classification (a reliable short-question bank): Social control — defining wrongs and attaching consequences (criminal law, tort, disciplinary rules); directing behaviour without the need for force in each case (the law's threat works so the police need not). Dispute resolution — courts, tribunals and ADR institutions convert conflict into judgment; the adjudicative function is law's face to most citizens. Dispute prevention and facilitation — law does more than resolve disputes: it prevents them by providing rules, forms and registries (contract frameworks, land registration, marriage registration, company incorporation) that channel conduct into safe grooves; law here is a service, not a sanction. Maintenance of the status quo and orderly change — law conserves (property, inheritance, prescription) and reforms (amendment, repeal, codification): it is both the brake and the engine of social change — social reform legislation (caste-discrimination prohibition, inclusion quotas) is law's change-function at work. Allocation of authority and membership — constitutions create offices and divide competence; nationality law defines who belongs; procedural law assigns jurisdiction — the "constitutive" or housekeeping functions without which the other functions cannot operate. Symbolic and educative functions — law declares the community's values (a bill of rights is partly pedagogy); "law as a teacher" — the Code's very language shapes what citizens think normal. The exam line:…