Portal:Law

The Law Portal

Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a legislature, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or by judges' decisions, which form precedent in common law jurisdictions. An autocrat may exercise those functions within their realm. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and also serves as a mediator of relations between people.

Legal systems vary between jurisdictions, with their differences analysed in comparative law. In civil law jurisdictions, a legislature or other central body codifies and consolidates the law. In common law systems, judges may make binding 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.

The scope of law can be divided into two domains: public law concerns government and society, including constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law; while private law deals with legal disputes between parties in areas such as contracts, property, torts, delicts and commercial law. This distinction is stronger in civil law countries, particularly those with a separate system of administrative courts; by contrast, the public-private law divide is less pronounced in common law jurisdictions. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

A horde of soldiers, carrying pikes and waving flags, march around the high walls of Antioch. Inside can be seen many small houses and, in the centre, a cathedral.

The Treaty of Deabolis (Greek: συνθήκη της Δεαβόλεως) was an agreement made in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in the wake of the First Crusade. It is named after the Byzantine fortress of Deabolis (modern Devol, Albania). Although the treaty was not immediately enforced, it was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire.

At the beginning of the First Crusade, crusader armies assembled at Constantinople and promised to return to the Byzantine Empire any land they might conquer. However, Bohemond, the son of Alexios' former enemy Robert Guiscard, claimed Antioch for himself. Alexios did not recognize the legitimacy of the principality, and Bohemond went to Europe looking for reinforcements. He launched into open warfare against Alexios, laying siege to Dyrrhachium, but he was soon forced to surrender and negotiate with Alexios at the imperial camp at Deabolis, where the Treaty was signed.

Under the terms of the Treaty, Bohemond agreed to become a vassal of the emperor and to defend the Empire whenever needed. He also accepted the appointment of a Greek patriarch. In return, he was given the titles of sebastos and doux (duke) of Antioch, and he was guaranteed the right to pass on to his heirs the County of Edessa. Following this, Bohemond retreated to Apulia and died there. His nephew, Tancred, who was regent in Antioch, refused to accept the terms of the treaty. Antioch came temporarily under Byzantine sway in 1137, but it was not until 1158 that it truly became a Byzantine vassal. (Full article...)

See all selected articles

Selected biography

Sir Robert Randolph Garran GCMG KC (10 February 1867 – 11 January 1957) was an Australian lawyer who became "Australia's first public servant" – the first federal government employee after the federation of the Australian colonies. He served as the departmental secretary of the Attorney-General's Department from 1901 to 1932, and after 1916 also held the position of Solicitor-General of Australia.

Garran was born in Sydney, the son of the journalist and politician Andrew Garran. He studied arts and law at the University of Sydney and was called to the bar in 1891. Garran was a keen supporter of the federation movement, and became acquainted with leading federalists like George Reid and Edmund Barton. At the 1897–98 constitutional convention he served as secretary of the drafting committee. On 1 January 1901, Garran was chosen by Barton's caretaker government as its first employee; for a brief period, he was the only member of the Commonwealth Public Service. His first duty was to write the inaugural edition of the Commonwealth Gazette, which contained Queen Victoria's proclamation authorising the creation of a federal government.

Over the following three decades, Garran provided legal advice to ten different prime ministers, from Barton to Joseph Lyons. He was considered an early expert in Australian constitutional law, and with John Quick published an annotated edition of the constitution that became a standard reference work. Garran developed a close relationship with Billy Hughes during World War I, and accompanied him to the Imperial War Cabinet and the Paris Peace Conference. Hughes, who was simultaneously prime minister and attorney-general, appointed him to the new position of solicitor-general and delegated numerous powers and responsibilities to him. He was knighted three times for his service to the Commonwealth, in 1917, in 1920 and in 1937. (Full article...)

See all selected biographies

Selected statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body; a law enacted by a legislature. Typically, statutes declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (otherwise known as common 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. Depending on the legal system, a statute may also be referred to as an "act." (Full article...)

The Trustee Act 2000 (c. 29) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that regulates the duties of trustees in English trust law. Reform in these areas had been advised as early as 1982, and finally came about through the Trustee Bill 2000, based on the Law Commission's 1999 report "Trustees' Powers and Duties", which was introduced to the House of Lords in January 2000. The bill received the Royal Assent on 23 November 2000 and came into force on 1 February 2001 through the Trustee Act 2000 (Commencement) Order 2001, a Statutory Instrument, with the Act having effect over England and Wales.

The Act covers five areas of trust law: the duty of care imposed upon trustees, trustees' power of investment, the power to appoint nominees and agents, the power to acquire land, and the power to receive remuneration for work done as a trustee. It sets a new duty of care, both objective and standard, massively extends the trustees' power of investment and limits the trustees' liability for the actions of agents, also providing for their remuneration for work done in the course of the trust. (Full article...)

More selected statutes

Did you know...

... that the Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Act 2007 allows social security information to be passed to the BBC?

... that after the crash of United Airlines Flight 297 in 1962, the Federal Aviation Administration created new regulations that required airplanes to better withstand bird strikes?

... that in Re A (conjoined twins) an English court permitted the separation of two conjoined twins knowing that one would die?

... that although Elizabeth Richards Tilton (pictured) was a central figure in a six-month-long trial, she was never allowed to speak in court?

... that under modern principles of vicarious liability in English law, employers are answerable for the intentional wrongdoings of their employees?

... that although John Fortescue listed ten Inns of Chancery, only nine are known?

... that oppositionist delegates to the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971 were among the first to be arrested when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines?

More did you know facts

Selected images

Image 1The Constitution of India
Image 2Painting of a jury deliberating
Image 3Jeremy Bentham's writings influenced law for generations.
Image 4Legal systems of the world
Image 5A courtroom in Tokyo, Japan
Image 6The Langdell Library of Harvard Law School
Image 7Signing of the Magna Carta
Image 8King Hammurabi receiving the code of laws from the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash
Image 9Emperor Justinian I (527–565) of the Byzantine Empire who ordered the codification of Corpus Juris Civilis.
Image 10Statue of Lady Justice holding scales
Image 11The first Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
Image 12Chief Justice John Marshall (1755 – 1835), an American statesman and jurist who greatly influenced constitutional law'
Image 13Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States as of October 2020
Image 14Jawaharlal Nehru at the Allahabad High Court
Image 15The defendants sitting in the dock during the Nuremberg Trials

Selected case

Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is a law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a legal case that have been resolved by courts or similar tribunals. 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...)

Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 1 All ER 53 is a case in English tort law that established the principle that claims under nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher must include a requirement that the damage be foreseeable; it also suggested that Rylands was a sub-set of nuisance rather than an independent tort, a debate eventually laid to rest in Transco plc v Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council.

The Cambridge Water Company were a company responsible for providing potable water to the inhabitants of Cambridge and the surrounding areas. In 1976, they purchased a borehole outside Sawston to deal with rising demand. In 1980, a European Directive was issued requiring nations of the European Community to establish standards on the presence of perchloroethene (PCE) in water, which the United Kingdom did in 1982. It was found that the Sawston borehole was contaminated with PCE that had originated in a tannery owned by Eastern Counties Leather. Prior to 1980, there was no knowledge that PCE should be avoided or that it could cause harm, but the Cambridge Water Company brought a case against Eastern Counties Leather anyway.

The case first went to the High Court of Justice, where Kennedy J dismissed claims under nuisance, negligence and Rylands v Fletcher because the harm was not foreseeable. His decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, who cited an "obscure decision" to justify doing so. The case then went to the House of Lords, where a decision was read by Lord Goff on 9 December 1993. Goff first countered the Court of Appeal decision, restoring Kennedy's dismissal of the case, before moving on to the deeper legal points. Based on the original decision in Rylands, Goff argued that it had always been intended for foreseeability of harm to be a factor, something not previously put into law by the English judiciary. He then stated that Rylands was arguably a sub-set of nuisance, not an independent tort, and as such the factors which led him to including a test of foreseeability of harm in Rylands cases also imposed such a test on all nuisance cases.

The decision in Cambridge Water Co made an immediate change to the law, for the first time requiring foreseeability of harm to be considered in cases brought under Rylands v Fletcher and the general tort of nuisance. It was also significant in implying that Rylands was not an independent tort, something later concluded in the Transco case. Goff's judgment has been criticised on several points by academics, who highlight flaws in wording which leave parts of the judgment ambiguous and a selective assessment of Rylands that ignores outside influences. (Full article...)

More selected cases
See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that according to one legal scholar, "no intelligent lawyer could well practice without" the books of Joseph Kinnicutt Angell?
... that a 1982 court case established that video games may qualify for multiple types of U.S. copyright protection?
... that since being left vacant the grade II–listed Occleshaw House in Leyland, Lancashire, has been used as an illegal cannabis farm and suffered a suspected arson attack?
... that O-Zone threatened legal action over Haiducii's cover of "Dragostea din tei", which became a hit on charts at the same time as the original?
... that an Australian High Court case found a hotel chain to have used third-party contractors to avoid paying employees their required benefits?
... that an activist protested the use of Chinese characters for Taiwanese Indigenous names by changing her legal name to "Lee I want to exclusively list my tribal name, my Bunun tribal name is Savungaz Valincinan"?

Legal news

Wikinews Crime and law portal

Related portals

General images

The following are images from various law-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 2Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 3Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)
Image 4Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)
Image 5Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 6Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 7King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 8The Supreme Court Building houses the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. (from Judiciary)
Image 9Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 10The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules, numerous amendments and 117,369 words (from Legal history)
Image 11Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (from Judiciary)
Image 12"With law shall land be built", from the Code of Jutland (1241) above the Copenhagen Court House, Denmark (from Legal history)
Image 13Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)
Image 14Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 15Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)

Topics

Quality content

Extended content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-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 is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Law}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.