The word “legal” conveys a sense of precision and imperative in addition to the domestic purport of “official” as is a “legal document” or “make it legal”. Whatever the usage legality implies a system of rules governing human conduct. Some of our laws are expressions of common sense like those pertaining to driving. But in the event of mistake or misunderstanding, there developed a batch of laws called “equity” or what former kings of England ascribed to the pronouncements dispensed in the court of chancery. Equity had a distinctly ecclesiastical flavour and effectively overrode those laws which for some reason or by some previously unanticipated quirk of circumstance made it seem “unfair” to apply the so-called “strict letter of the law”. Hence the characteristic mystical or churchly theme. The common law was a set of precedents which established the expected habit of enforcement after repeated consideration of similar facts. Statutory law was a “codification” of laws which overcame precedent and was intended to reduce variation to a minimum. And if all that were not enough, many countries (but not England surprisingly) created Constitutions which were so broadly worded as to cover almost any eventuality yet insinuate the whole with what were perceived by the legislators to be ideal motives of governance.
