subjects. Yet the Corpus Iuris is the most highly prized and influential of all western collections of legislation. Similarly, since at least the th century and right up to today scholars have stressed the difficulty of finding the law in English statutes.58 Law needs authority to be authoritative. For judicial precedent, juristic opinion, custom to be law requires acquiescence in the decision by the ruler. But there is more to the issue. Thus, ‘good’ jurists have to decide according to the reasoning approved by their fellow jurists, judges by top legal figures. In a customary system a supposed custom has to be found. This authority has to be discovered or invented and this need is one of the main causes of legal borrowing, no matter which sources of law are used. Likewise, the need for authority is the cause of the continuance of much dysfunctional law. The need for authority bends law out of shape. Rulers are content usually to allow others to make the law. Legislation is the sole source of law that is directly under the control of the ruler. The sole necessary talent of rulers is to remain in power. It is this that accounts for the general neglect of many areas of law by legislators. Most of the time most areas of private law, and even criminal law, will be irrelevant for their survival. It is not necessary for rulers to strive to give their society the best or most suitable law. Legislation is predominantly, if not always wholly, political. I may mention in passing American legislators’ addiction to ‘pork.’ Other means are found to develop private law. The facts are obvious, but conclusions are not drawn. This last statement holds true even when the law looks apolitical. A good example is the Roman Twelve Tables of around / B.C. This contains almost entirely private law. No provision deals with public offices, and only one concerns the state religion. That last is 58 See e.g. the works cited in Alan Watson, Sources of Law, Legal Change, and Ambiguity, (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 77 ff.
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