Decentralization of Law-Making

Abstract

The decentralization of law-making may be advocated from three points of view. Decentralization may be necessary in order to put law-making more into the hands of those who know the social conditions in which the law is to function. Again, it may be necessary in order to curb the increasing sense of power of existing organized interests (Interessengemeinschaften) by transforming them into legal communities (Rechtsgemeinschaften), i.e., associations whose internal relations are governed by law of their own making. Finally, decentralization may be needed because the people’s sense of right may have inadequate organs and therefore its operation may be so impaired that the written law falls more and more into arrears.