Significance of law
Natural law philosophers have argued that law is “ideal set of principles which guide legal
development and administration; it also reflects on the innate sense of what is morally right and
what is wrong as exemplify in human. In this regard, the significance of administration of
criminal justice is geared toward the idea of social control. Social control, in the sense of the
improvement and the administration of rules which are best to regulate those human behaviours
and conducts inimical to both man and to the inhabitants by law. In its widest connotation it is
difficult to conceive of behaviour that does not in one way or the other affect others since no man
is an island. Administration of criminal justice import and attach legal liability to human
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conducts engaged in wrong doing which conducts have the potentialities to ultimately impaired
wrong doer, the offended or constitute a drain on the scarce resources of the country.
This significance is referred to a certain regulative institution which functions to ensure that
individual behaviour is in conformity with group demands and the various ways in which the society
exercises its authority over its members and enforces conformity to it norms. The term
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„social control‟ has been used to described law as a control exerted actively or passively by
group action through systemic application of the forces of politically organised society.
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Although, there is a wide range of means of social control, which systems vary greatly in the
form of conducts they regulate and the means employed; the informal and the formal. The
research has earlier on said that the relics of customs and traditions like taboo were the vestiges
of social control in an era past which still rears their heads in the customary settings. Customary
laws consist of customs which are accepted by members of a community as binding among
them.145 Customary law binds members of the society in which it is recognised and upheld as
141 John. O. Asein 2005, , Ababa Press. Pp. 11-15Introduction to Nigerian Legal System
142 John O. Akintayo(2006) in Abiola Sanni, p. 78Method of social through law,
143 Otite, O. and Ogionwo, W(1979), Heinemann, pp. 374-375Introduction to Sociological Studies,
144 Quinney, R(1970), Little Brown & Co.in Abiola Sanni op. cit. p. 81The Social Realty of Crime,
145 Akinbola, B. R(2006) , University of Islamic Law as an Aspect of Customary Law in Nigeria _A Call for Review
Ibadan Journal of Private and Business Law (UIJPL) Vol. 2006 pp. 186-188.
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law or as a mean of social control and governs the lives of many who may never opt for any
because it is their way of life.146
However, there appears to be agreement among legal jurists that law is the most significant
means of social control among others. In his work, Roscoe Pound wrote: “in the modern world
law has become the paramount agent of social control.”147 Thus, a legal system is the best
obvious form of social control. This becomes more important with increased complexity in
societies and greater dependence on law as an instrument of social control. Though, the argument
that some laws are noticed in breach more than in enforcement coupled with the incidence of
dead letter laws contained in statute books, point to some of the exceptions to importance of law
as a means of social control. Further, is that, enforcement does not altogether prevent occurrence
of some vices which the law aims to prevent and which could as well lead to other problems
constituting important drawbacks on the efficacy of law.
Among these drawbacks is the discretion which law agencies exercise, and whether where law
appears to be significantly at variance with popular conduct and unsupported, it is not bound to
