Nature of legal research
The nature of legal issues and the subject matter of law is different from another scientific research. Legal phenomenon requires various methods of research. Legal research is performed by the one with the need for legal knowledge and information. The issues that are covered within legal research are issues of enquiry which are naturally relating to pure law or relation of law in society.
Along with this there are certain nature of Legal Research they are: -
- Research is scientific.
- May be evolving through increasing with other disciplines in research.
- Deals with social and behavioral phenomenon.
- Used to discover new facts and verify the old ones.
- Seek solutions for legal problems.
- Provide a wider spectrum to analyze the legal facts.
Additional topics that need to be covered in these chapter can be summarized as: -
Scope of legal research
- It has scope in legislative area.
- A wider scope in judicial area.
- It does have a Scope in executive area.
- In academic area.
- In the professional sector.
- In Juristic sector.
- Used by law commission and others.
- To find legal culture.
- for comparative study of law within different countries.
In the common and civil legal system by: - Legislators, advocates, law teachers, law students administrate officer and many more.
Sources of Legal Research for Data Collection
Primary source: - It is firsthand research and it includes non-doctrinal methods like: -
- Observation.
- Questionnaire.
- Interview.
Secondary source: - It involves extracting required information from already established or collected data. It Includes: -
- Journal.
- Article.
- Regulations.
- Treaties.
- Online legal database.
- Legal dictionary.
- Case laws.
Types of legal research
1. Historical legal research: - it means finding out about the previous law in order to understand the reason behind the existing law and the course of its development. It is necessary to explore the circumstances in which the present law has come out.
2. Doctrinal legal Research: - it means research that has been carried out on a legal preposition by analyzing the statutory provisions. It involves the analysis of case laws, ordering and arranging the legal propositions.
3. Non doctrinal Legal Research: - it is also known as socio legal research. It is facts oriented and it allows resources to perform interdisciplinary research. To conduct non doctrinal legal research, it may require additional training for researchers.
4. Comparative legal research: - It is used to study legislative text with comparative method. it provides awareness of cultural and social characters of law and provides the reason of development and functioning of such laws. Furthermore, it also gives exploration of detailed knowledge of law with respect of other countries and is beneficial to trace the evolution of law modification of law amendment of law and the changes that a law requires.
Importance and Significance of Legal Research.
- In law making process: it is important to make, amend or repeal the laws.
- To maintain Social Justice: - it is important to identify and challenge the unjust law for the development of new legal theories.
- To Reform the law.
- To provide support to existing advocation groups such as NGOs and INGOs.
- To find out loopholes of existing law and helps to reform such loopholes.
- To increase the efficiency in legal case trial and judgement pattern.
- To compare various legal systems.
- To understand the precedent.
- To make legal documents to find the relevant ideas on law legal statutes and regulations.
Prepared and Edited By: Manish Rajak & Madhu Dahal
