T H E O L O G O S - Prešovská univerzita v Prešove

Piotr Kroczek
are responsible for community, especially for legislators. This is the reason
why the issue in question is widely discussed in jurisprudence 2 .
Authority of law means that the people to whom the law is addressed
hold law in high esteem. The prestige of law is seen as a respect demonstrated
by community towards law. Users of law have the feeling that
law is an important part of the order and understand why it is so. They
know well that law guarantees their rights, freedoms, and that it orders
their duties and obligations. They value law and appreciate its existence
and merits. The described stance of users of law towards law, concerns
their position both towards system of law and towards single act of law
or collection of acts of law that regulate the same area. The distinction is
to be made, because it is possible that system of law would enjoy authority,
but some of its elements not. Opposite situation is also possible, but
much less probable.
The key question is: On what does the authority of law depend? And
subsequent problem is: What can a legislator do to increase the authority
of law? The article will try to solve the issues in optic of Church law. To
do this, at the beginning functions of law in Church society are described;
next typical attitudes to law are presented to give proper background
of the ways in which persons react to law. The third part deals with the
necessity of faith in acting according to canonical law, and the last point
of the article is a presentation of components of authority of law.
1 Function of Law
Why is law in need of its own authority? The rough answer has
been already given: to shape effectively life of community. But in case of
canon law the matter is much more complicated and must be understood
more deeply. The first step in achieving this deeper understanding is the
discussion of the functions of law. The term function of law is ambiguous
in jurisprudence 3 . For the purpose of this article it can be determined and
limited to aims of law and results of law in life of community.
2
See e.g.: A. PODGÓRECKI, Prestiż prawa, Warszawa 1966; J. Raz, The Authority of
Law: Essays on Law and Morality, Oxford 1979; L. GREEN, Authority of the State, Oxford
1988; V. A. WELLMAN, Authority of Law, [in:] D. Patterson, A Companion to Philosophy
of Law and Legal Theory, Maldem-Oxford 1999, p. 573-582.
3
I. BOGUCKA, Funkcje prawa. Analiza pojęcia, Kraków 2000, p. 7; see more: S. DRZYŻ-
DŻYK, Znaczenie prawa w państwie demokratycznym, [in:] P. Majer, A. Wójcik, ed.,
Lex Tua In Corde Meo, Kraków 2004, p. 207-228.
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