The development of the tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the

Question

The aim of the rules of natural justice is to secure justice or to put it negatively to prevent miscarriage of justice. These rules can operate only in areas not covered by any law validly made. In other words, they do not supplant the law of the land but supplement it. The concept of natural justice has undergone a great deal of change in recent years. In the past, it was thought that it included just two rules namely: (1) no one shall be a judge in his own case (Nemo debet esse judex propria causa) and (2) no decision shall be given against a party without affording him a reasonable hearing (audi alteram partem).
Very soon thereafter a third rule was envisaged and that is that quasi-judicial enquiries must be held in good faith, without bias and not arbitrarily or unreasonably. But in the course of years many more subsidiary rules came to be added to the rules of natural justice. Till very recently it was the opinion of the courts that unless the authority concerned was required by the law under which it functioned to act judicially there was no room for the application of the rules of natural justice. The validity of that limitation is not questioned.
If the purpose of the rules of natural justice is to prevent miscarriage of justice one fails to see why those rules should be made inapplicable to administrative enquiries. Often times it is not easy to draw the line that demarcates administrative enquiries from quasi-judicial enquiries. Enquiries which were considered administrative at one time are now being considered as quasi-judicial in character. Arriving at a just decision is the aim of both quasi-judicial enquiries as well as administrative enquiries. An unjust decision in an administrative enquiry may have more far reaching effect than a decision in a quasi-judicial enquiry as observed by this Court in Suresh Koshy George v. University of Kerala [Civil Appeal No. 990/68, decided on 15-07- 1968], the rules of natural justice are not embodied rules. What particular rule of natural justice should apply to a given case must depend to a great extent on the facts and circumstances of that case, the framework of the law under which the enquiry is held and the constitution of the Tribunal or body of persons appointed for that purpose. Whenever a complaint is made before a court that some principle of natural justice had been contravened the court has to decide whether the observance of that rule was necessary for a just decision on the facts of that case.
[Extract from the judgment of the Supreme Court in A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India, (1969) 2 SCC 262, decided on April 29, 1969, hereafter ‘A.K. Kraipak’].

Answer 1

It helps to first ask what "natural law" actually claims: that there exists a standard of justice built into the nature of things or into human reason itself, against which human-made laws can be measured. The question is asking which school of thought first worked out this idea in a form that later grew into natural justice.

Stoics: The Stoics taught that the universe is governed by a rational order, and that human beings, sharing in that same reason, can work out universal principles of right and wrong. Cicero, writing in the Stoic tradition, argued that true law is right reason in agreement with nature, unchanging and valid for all people. This is exactly the seed idea behind natural law, and later, natural justice.
Positivists: Positivists insist that whether a rule is law depends only on its source, such as a valid legislature, and not on whether it matches any higher moral order. This view runs directly against the natural law idea, so positivists could not be credited with developing it.
Historical School: This school traces law back to the customs and traditions that a community develops over time, growing organically like language does. That is a very different starting point from a universal rational order applicable to every person everywhere, so it is not the source of natural law either.
Analytical School: This school treats law as a technical system to be studied for its structure and logical consistency, largely ignoring moral content. Since natural law is fundamentally about moral content, the analytical approach is not where it originates.

Since only the Stoic idea of a universal reason underlying all law lines up with what natural law claims, the Stoics are correctly credited with this development.

Answer 2

A different way into this question is to think about timelines. Natural law is an old idea, older than any of the modern schools listed here, so the answer has to be the option that is actually ancient enough to have started it.

Stoics: The Stoic school is the oldest of the four options by a wide margin, dating back to ancient Greece and continuing through Roman thought. Their core teaching, that the universe follows a rational natural order that human beings can access through reason, and that just law must conform to it, predates every other option here and is the acknowledged origin point historians of jurisprudence point to.
Positivists: Legal positivism as a named school is a much later development, arising with thinkers such as Bentham and Austin, and its whole project was to strip law of exactly the moral, nature-based reasoning the Stoics introduced. A school built to move away from natural law cannot also be the one that built it.
Historical School: Also a comparatively modern school, tied to nineteenth-century thinkers like Savigny, this view roots law in the evolving customs of a specific people rather than in a timeless universal order. It explains variation between legal systems, which is the opposite of what natural law theory claims.
Analytical School: Another modern school, focused narrowly on describing existing legal rules and their logical structure. It deliberately avoids moral or natural-order arguments, which places it outside the natural law tradition entirely.

Once the timeline and the substance of each school's claims are both considered, the Stoics stand out as the only credible origin of natural law thinking.

Therefore, the correct answer is Stoics.

Answer 3

A different way into this question is to think about timelines. Natural law is an old idea, older than any of the modern schools listed here, so the answer has to be the option that is actually ancient enough to have started it.

Stoics: The Stoic school is the oldest of the four options by a wide margin, dating back to ancient Greece and continuing through Roman thought. Their core teaching, that the universe follows a rational natural order that human beings can access through reason, and that just law must conform to it, predates every other option here and is the acknowledged origin point historians of jurisprudence point to.
Positivists: Legal positivism as a named school is a much later development, arising with thinkers such as Bentham and Austin, and its whole project was to strip law of exactly the moral, nature-based reasoning the Stoics introduced. A school built to move away from natural law cannot also be the one that built it.
Historical School: Also a comparatively modern school, tied to nineteenth-century thinkers like Savigny, this view roots law in the evolving customs of a specific people rather than in a timeless universal order. It explains variation between legal systems, which is the opposite of what natural law theory claims.
Analytical School: Another modern school, focused narrowly on describing existing legal rules and their logical structure. It deliberately avoids moral or natural-order arguments, which places it outside the natural law tradition entirely.

Once the timeline and the substance of each school's claims are both considered, the Stoics stand out as the only credible origin of natural law thinking.

Therefore, the correct answer is Stoics.

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