Rules and laws: why?
From house rules to the Constitution: rules help us live together and protect those who are weaker. Every rule has a maker, a reach and a consequence if you break it.
You can start here straight away: you need nothing first.
Why
Why might you be allowed to use your phone at the table at home, but not during lessons at school?
Wherever people are together, there are rules: at home, in class, at the sports club, in your municipality and in the whole country. Sometimes you hardly notice them, sometimes they clash with what you want.
When you know who makes a rule and why, you understand better why it is there. You also know how to get a rule changed if you think it is unfair.
See it
Click a rung of the ladder. You see who makes the rule, who it applies to and what can happen if you break it.
- Who makes the rule?
- the school
- Who does it apply to?
- one school
- If you break it
- The school can give a sanction written in the school rules.
Description of the picture
A ladder of rules. At the bottom are the house rules, above them the class agreements, the school rules, the municipal regulation, then laws, decrees and ordinances, and at the very top the Constitution. The higher the rung, the wider it is, because the bigger the group the rule applies to.
Get it
Rules make living together easier. They let you know what you can expect from others, they share out what is scarce, such as time and space, and they protect those who are weaker. Without rules, whoever is strongest or loudest soon decides.
Rules have a reach: the group of people they apply to. House rules apply in one family, class agreements in one class, the school rules in one school. A municipal regulation, voted by the municipal council, applies in one municipality.
Higher up the ladder are the rules of the parliaments. The federal parliament makes laws, which apply in the whole of Belgium. The parliaments of the communities and the regions make decrees, and in Brussels they are called ordinances. At the very top is the Constitution, with the fundamental rights among other things. No other rule may go against it.
Whoever breaks a rule gets a consequence that fits the rule. At home your parents talk to you, at school a sanction from the school rules may follow, the municipality can give a fine. With a law, the police can step in and a judge can impose a penalty or a fine.
Rules are not fixed forever. They can change, but along the agreed route: in class by talking together, at school through the pupil council, in the municipality and the country through the elected councils and parliaments.
Every rule has a maker, a reach and a consequence if you break it. The higher up the ladder, the bigger the reach. The Constitution is at the top.
Worked example
Yusuf sees a sign in the park of Ergenshoven: dogs must be on a lead. What kind of rule is that, who made it, and what can happen if someone breaks it?
The rule applies in the park of one municipality, Ergenshoven. So the reach is one municipality.
Rules for one municipality are municipal regulations. The municipal council adopts them.
Whoever breaks such a regulation can get a fine from the municipality.
- Answer
It is a municipal regulation, voted by the municipal council. Whoever breaks it can get a fine.
Do it
Choose a level. You get a new exercise every time, checked straight away.
Pitfalls
Wrong: The school rules apply at home too.
Every rule has a reach. The school rules apply at school and during school activities, not in your family.
Right: Always check who a rule applies to: a family, a class, a school, a municipality or the whole country.
Wrong: Rules only exist so people can be punished.
Rules mainly make sure you know what to expect, and they protect those who are weaker.
Right: A consequence comes with a rule, but the aim is living together, not punishing.
Wrong: You may simply ignore a rule you think is unfair.
If everyone chooses for themselves which rules count, nobody has anything to hold on to.
Right: Say what you think and try to get the rule changed along the agreed route, for example through the pupil council.
Wrong: A law may go against the Constitution.
The Constitution is at the top of the ladder. The Constitutional Court checks whether laws respect the Constitution.
Right: Every rule must fit within the rules higher up the ladder.
In real life
- At the swimming pool there are rules on the wall: shower first, no running along the pool. Those rules protect everyone who swims there.
- A sports club has club rules, for example about arriving on time for training.
- In class, pupils sometimes make agreements with the teacher about how they treat each other.
- When your municipality makes a new rule about rubbish, you often read about it in the municipal newsletter.
History
Belgium became independent in 1830. The Constitution, at the top of the ladder of rules, dates from 1831.
At the table
Which house rule would you like to change together, and how do you agree that such a change happens fairly?
A question to talk about together, for parents and children. There is no wrong answer.