LAW AS IDENTITY

Abstract

Law is a direction in which a society follows as it exists, grows and develops, and as such enshrines in the community a consciousness which forms an identity as understood and demonstrated by the citizens. Thus, the concept law becomes an identity of the people as these form their lived experience. The complex orientation of law is beyond the reductionist approach of some jurisprudence scholars in their varied conceptions of law. The crises of identity as a result of some social political space and interest post a great challenge on law. The method of hermeneutic analysis is used to determine and understand the legal system text as a lived experience of the community as it engraved in the community consciousness. Law as identity is the ordered form of life born out of law as formative and dialectical in orientation as the dynamism which characterized the Society unfolds. It closes the gap created by the reductionist approaches of some scholars but shows a comprehensive articulation of the concept law in a wide scenario which embraces the dynamism of human existence.