Law is a set of rules that are created and areenforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as ascience and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by alegislature, resulting instatutes; by the executive throughdecrees andregulations; or by judges' decisions, which formprecedent incommon law jurisdictions. Anautocrat may exercise those functions within their realm. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by aconstitution, written or tacit, and therights encoded therein. The law shapespolitics,economics,history andsociety in various ways and also serves as a mediator of relations between people.
Legal systems vary betweenjurisdictions, with their differences analysed incomparative law. Incivil law jurisdictions, a legislature or other central bodycodifies and consolidates the law. In common law systems, judges may makebinding case law through precedent, although on occasion this may be overturned by a higher court or the legislature.Religious law is in use in some religious communities and states, and has historically influenced secular law.
Tracing is a procedure in English law used to identify property (such as money) which has been taken from the claimant involuntarily or which the claimant wishes to recover. It is not in itself a way to recover the property, but rather to identify it so that the courts can decide whatremedy to apply. The procedure is used in several situations, broadly demarcated by whether the property has been transferred because oftheft,breach of trust, or mistake.
Tracing is divided into two forms, common law tracing and equitable tracing. Common law tracing relies on the claimant having legal ownership of the property, and will fail if the property has been mixed with other property, the legal title has been transferred to the defendant, or the legal title has been transferred by the defendant to any further recipient of the property. Equitable tracing, on the other hand, relies on the claimant having anequitable interest in the property, and can succeed where the property has been mixed with other property.
Defences to tracing are possible, particularly if returning the property would harm an innocent defendant, where the claimant has made false representations that the defendant relied on to his detriment, or where the property has been transferred to an innocent third party without anything given to the defendant in return that the claimant could recover in lieu. (Full article...)
Sir Nicholas Fuller (1543 – 23 February 1620) was an English barrister andMember of Parliament. After studying atChrist's College, Cambridge, Fuller became a barrister ofGray's Inn. His legal career there began prosperously—he was employed by thePrivy Council to examine witnesses—but was hampered later by his representation of thePuritans, a religious tendency which did not conform with the establishedChurch of England. Fuller was repeatedly in contention with the ecclesiastical courts, including theStar Chamber andCourt of High Commission, and was once expelled for the zeal with which he defended his client. In 1593 he was returned as the Member of Parliament forSt Mawes, where he campaigned against the extension ofrecusancy laws. Outside of Parliament, he successfully brought a patents case which not only undermined the right ofthe Crown to issue patents but accurately predicted the attitude taken by theStatute of Monopolies two decades later.
Returned to Parliament in 1604 for theCity of London, Fuller became considered the "leader of the opposition" due to his conflict with the government over policy, fighting theimpositions oncurrants, the patent onblue starch, and opposing the proposed union with Scotland on legal and economic grounds. In 1607, in what became known asFuller's Case, he again began challenging the Court of High Commission, and eventually got theCourt of Common Pleas underSir Edward Coke to agree that the common law courts had the power to free imprisoned ecclesiastical prisoners. These encounters with the ecclesiastical courts were described as "bruising", but by 1610 he was considered an "elder statesman", introducing bills on ecclesiastical reform and the statutory management of customs duties. He continued to sit in Parliament until his death on 23 February 1620. (Full article...)
Astatute is a law or formal written enactment of alegislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known ascommon law) in that they are the expressed will of a legislative body, whether that be on the behalf of a country, state or province, county,municipality, or so on. They are also distinguished fromsecondary legislation, or regulations, that are issued by an executive body under authority granted by a statute. Depending on the legal system, a statute may also be referred to as an "act." (Full article...)
The Laws of the Twelve Tables (Latin:lex duodecim tabularum) was the legislation that stood at the foundation ofRoman law. Formally promulgated in 449 BC, the Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.
In theForum, "The Twelve Tables" stated the rights and duties of theRoman citizen. Their formulation was the result of considerable agitation by theplebeian class, who had hitherto been excluded from the higher benefits of theRepublic. The law had previously been unwritten and exclusively interpreted by upper-class priests, thepontifices. Something of the regard with which later Romans came to view the Twelve Tables is captured in the remark ofCicero (106–43 BC) that the "Twelve Tables...seems to me, assuredly to surpass the libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility". Cicero scarcely exaggerated; the Twelve Tables formed the basis of Roman law for a thousand years.
The Twelve Tables are sufficiently comprehensive that their substance has been described as a 'code', although modern scholars consider this characterization exaggerated. The Tables are a sequence of definitions of various private rights and procedures. They generally took for granted such things as the institutions of the family and various rituals for formal transactions. The provisions were often highly specific and diverse. (Full article...)
... that, in the cases ofKlayman v. Obama andACLU v. Clapper, US district courts issued conflicting rulings on the constitutionality of bulk data collection by the US government?
... that in 2011,Nitehawk Cinema successfully lobbied to overturn aProhibition-era liquor law that prevented movie theaters in New York from serving alcohol?
Case law, also used interchangeably withcommon law, is alaw that is based onprecedents, that is thejudicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based onconstitutions,statutes, orregulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of alegal case that have been resolved bycourts or similartribunals. These past decisions are called "case law", or precedent.Stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand"—is the principle by which judges are bound to such past decisions, drawing on established judicial authority to formulate their positions. (Full article...)
Greene v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2004] EWCA Civ 1462 is a case of theCourt of Appeal of England and Wales that governs the use of injunctions against publication in allegeddefamation cases. Greene, a businesswoman, sought an injunction against Associated Newspapers Ltd to prevent them publishing alleged links withPeter Foster; while they claimed to have emails showing links, she asserted that they were false. The test at the time for a preliminary injunction in defamation cases wasBonnard v Perryman, where it was established that the applicant has to show "a real prospect of success" at trial. TheHuman Rights Act 1998 established that judges should consider whether applicants are "more likely than not" to succeed at trial, a test applied to confidentiality cases inCream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee and the Liverpool Post and Echo Ltd. Greene claimed that theCream test should be applied rather than theBonnard test.
The case first went to theHigh Court of Justice, where it was heard byFulford J; he decided that he did not have the authority to overruleBonnard, and passed the case on to theCourt of Appeal after granting a temporary injunction. In the Court of Appeal, the case was heard byMay,Dyson andBrooke LJJ, with Brooke delivering the judgment on 5 November 2004. In it, Brooke judged that defamation, the subject ofGreene, was significantly different from breach of confidentiality, the subject inCream. While the damage from a breach of confidentiality can never be undone, justifying a simple test for issuing injunctions, a defamation case that is won vindicates the injured party. Making it easier to grant injunctions in defamation cases would damage the delicate balance between freedom of the press and the right to privacy; as such, despite the Human Rights Act,Bonnard is still a valid test. (Full article...)
... thata Bangladeshi government agency collected ৳6.5 billion (equivalent to US$150 million in 2023) from corruption suspects, but a court ruled it was illegal?
... that American legal scholarJohn Hart Ely penned a law review article castigating the Supreme Court's decision inRoe v. Wade, despite beingpro-choice?
... that 90 percent of Indonesia'svillage-owned enterprises are not legal entities, hampering their ability to attract investors or open bank accounts?
The following are images from various law-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Lady Justice (Latin:Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (fromJudiciary)
Image 2TheConstitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules, numerous amendments and 117,369 words. (fromLegal history)
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly byJL-Bot (talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it istagged (e.g.{{WikiProject Law}}) orcategorized correctly and wait for the next update. SeeWP:RECOG for configuration options.
.JPG)
_by_English_School.png)
.jpg)
.png)
.svg)
.jpg)
_Aristotele_by_Francesco_Hayez_in_gallerie_Accademia_Venice.jpg)
