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Law

Specialty Definition: Law

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Specialty Definition: English Law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The law of England and Wales (but not Scotland and the other sections of the UK) is considered by some to be one of Great Britain's great gifts to the world. Also known generally as the common law (as opposed to civil law), it was exported to Commonwealth countries while the British Empire was established and maintained, and persisted after the Bristish withdrew or were expelled, to form the basis of the jurisprudence of many of those countries. Actually part of the English legal system has always been considered to be based upon the civil law, namely the ecclesiastical courts and the courts of admiralty.

The essence of common law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent to the fact before them. Because common law consisted of using what had gone before as a guide, common law places great emphasis on precedents. Thus a decision of the highest court in England and Wales, the House of Lords (the judicial members of which are referred to as Law Lords) is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, and they will follow its directions.

It is also for this reason that there is no Act of Parliament (the normal method for creating laws in the UK) making murder illegal. It is still a common law crime - so although there is no written Act passed by Parliament making murder illegal, it is illegal by virtue of the constitutional authority of the courts and their previous decisions. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence.

However, while England and Wales retains the common law the UK is part of the European Union and European Union Law is effective in the UK. The European Union consists mainly of countries which use civil law and so the civil law system is also in England in this form, and the European Court of Justice, a prodominantly civil law court, can direct UK courts on the meaning of EU law.

See also: Courts of England and Wales, Scottish Law, List of United Kingdom topics

External links

• LawWiki tries to document the current laws in the UK.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "English Law."

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Halakha

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Halakha (halakhah, halacha, halachah) is a Hebrew word, commonly used to refer to the collective corpus of Jewish law, custom and tradition. It comes from the Hebrew root word for "going". A literal translation does not yield the word "law"; rather it translates as "the way to go."

Halakha is based on the commandments in the Torah (five books of Moses) as viewed through the discussions and debates contained in the classical rabbinic literature, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud. Jews refer to the Torah as The Written Law, and the Mishnah and Talmud as the oral law.

Unlike secular precedent based systems, halakha is a religious system, whose axiom is that Jewish law represents the will of God. Most Orthodox Jews, hold that halakha represents the actual will of God, either directly, or as closely to directly as possible. If the laws in Jewish law codes are not the word of God per se, they are nonetheless derived from the literal word of God in the Torah, using a set of rules also revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and have been derived with the utmost accuracy and care. In this world view, one's ancestors are closer to the divine revelation and the later Mishnaic and Talmudic rabbis; as such, the corollary is that one must be extremely conservative changing or adapting Jewish law. This view is found in all branches of Orthodox Judaism, and in the right-wing of Conservative Judaism.

Other religious Jews equally hold that while God is real, for theological reasons they hold that the Torah is not the word of God in a literal sense. However, in this view the Torah is still held as mankind's record of its understanding of God's revelation, and thus still has divine authority. In this view, traditional Jewish law is still seen as binding. Jews who hold by this view generally try to use modern methods of historical study to learn how Jewish law has changed over time, and are more willing to change Jewish law in the present. This view is found within Conservative Judaism, and within the left wing of Orthodoxy.

Eras of history important in Jewish law

• The Tannaim are the sages of the Mishna (70 CE-200 CE)

• The Amoraim are the sages of the Talmud (200 CE - 500 CE)

• The Savoraim are the classical Persian rabbis (500 CE - 600 CE)

• The Geonim are the rabbis of Sura and Pumbeditha, in Babylonia (650 CE - 1250 CE)

• The Rishonim are the rabbis of the early medieval period (1250 CE - 1550 CE)

• The Acharonim are the rabbis of 1550 to the present.

Generally speaking, a rabbi in any one period of time does not overrule specific laws from earlier eras of Jewish history, unless one can find another rabbi from that era whose ruling can be used to support his view.

The laws of the Torah

According to the Talmud (Tractate Makot), there are 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah; In Hebrew these are known as the Taryag mitzvot. There are 248 positive mitzvot and 365 negative mitzvot given in the Torah, supplemented by seven mitzvot legislated by the rabbis of antiquity. However, in practice there is no one definitive list that explicates the 613 laws: Centuries after the idea of 613 laws came into existence various rabbis compiled lists of the 613 laws, yet each list varied slightly. The differences come about because in some places the Torah lists related laws together, so it is difficult to know whether one is dealing with a single law, which lists several cases, or several separate laws.

One list of the 613 mitzvot can be found here.

The halakhic process

The boundaries of Jewish law are determined through the halakhic process; the halakhic process is a religious-ethical system of legal precedents. In this system, one may re-interpret or change the law through a formal argument. These arguments are effectively, yet unofficially, peer-reviewed. When a rabbi proposes a new interpretation of a law, that interpretation is not normative for the Jewish community until it becomes accepted by other committed and observant members in the community. New legal precedents are based on the standard codes of Jewish law, and the responsa literature. The Hebrew term for the responsa is '"Sheelot U-Teshuvot"', literally "Questions and Answers".

There is no formal peer-review process for the entire Jewish community in general, since the Jewish community has no one central body that speaks for all of Judaism. However, within certain Jewish communities formal organized bodies exist: Each sect of Orthodox Hasidic Judaism has their own rebbe, who is their ultimate decisor of Jewish law. Within Modern Orthodox Judaism, there is no one committee or leader, but Modern Orthodox rabbis generally agree with the views set by consensus by the leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America. Within Conservative Judaism, the Rabbinical Assembly has an official Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

The thirteen rules by which Jewish law was derived

During the time of the Mishnah, the oral law was said to be derived from the written Torah by virtue of one or more of the following methods:

1. A fortiori: We find a similar law in a more lenient case; how more so should that law apply to our stricter case!
2. Gezera Shava, similarity in phrase: We find a similar law in a verse containing a similar phrase to one in our verse. This method can only be used by oral tradition.
3. Binyan Av, either by one or two Scriptures: We find a similar law in another case, why shouldn't we assume that the same law applies here? Now the argument may go against this inference, finding some law which applies to that case but not to ours. This type of refutation is valid only if the inference was from one Scripture, not if it was from two Scriptures.
4. Klal Ufrat, a generality and a particularity: If we find a phrase signifying a particularity following that of a generality, the particularity particularises the generality and we only take that particular case into account.
5. Prat Ukhlal, a particularity and a generality: If the order is first the particularity and then the generality, we add from the generality upon the particularity, even to a broad extent.
6. Klal Ufrat Ukhlal, a generality, a particularity and a generality: If there is a particularity inserted between two generalities, we only add cases similar to the particularity.
7. A generality that requires a particularity, and a particularity that requires a generality:
8. Every thing that was within the general rule and was excluded from the rule to teach us a rule, we don't consider this rule as pertaining only to this excluded case, but to the entire general case.
9. Anything that was included in a general rule, and was excluded to be susceptible to one rule that is according to its subject, it is only excluded to be treated more leniently but not more strictly.
10. Anything that was included in a general rule and was excluded to be susceptible to one rule that is not according to its subject, it is excluded to be treated both more leniently and more strictly.
11. Anything that was included in a general rule and was excluded to be treated by a new rule, we cannot restore it to its general rule unless Scripture restores it explicitly.
12. A matter that is inferred from its context, and a matter that is inferred from its ending.
13. The resolution of two Scriptures that contradict each other [must wait] until a third Scripture arrives and resolves their apparent contradiction.

Categories of law

Judaism divides the laws into two basic categories:

1. Laws in relation to God, and
2. Laws about relations with other people.

Violations of the latter are considered to be more severe, as one must obtain forgiveness both from the offended person and from God.

Laws are also divided into positive and negative commands, which are treated differently in terms of Divine and human punishment. Positive commands add to your balance, violation of negative commands detracts from it. One thus wants to do as many positive commands as possible, and violate as few negative commands as possible, so as to improve one's standing with God.

In earlier days, when Jews had a functioning court system, courts were empowered to administer physical punishments for various violations, upon conviction by far stricter standards of evidence than are acceptable in American courts: corporal punishment, incarceration, excommunication. Since the fall of the Temple, executions have been forbidden. Since the fall of the autonomous Jewish communities of Europe, the other punishments have also fallen by the wayside. Today, then, one's accounts are reckoned solely by God.

In antiquity, there was a body called the Sanhedrin, a Supreme Court and legislature for Judaism, which had the power to create and administer binding law on all Jews. That court ceased to function in its full mode in 40 CE. Today, application of Jewish law is left to the local rabbi, and the local rabbinical courts, with only local applicability.

Sins: Violations of Jewish law

Judaism regards the violation of mitzvot (Hebrew language, "commandments") to be a sin. The term sin is theologically loaded, as it means different things to Jews and Christians. In Christianity a sin is a crime committed against God, from which one will suffer a tremendous divine punishment, unless one repents. Judaism has a wider definition of the term sin, and also uses it to include violations of Jewish law that are not necessarily a lapse in morality. Further, Judaism holds it as given that all people sin at various points in their lives, and hold that God always tempers justice with mercy.

The generic Hebrew word for any kind of sin is aveira. Based on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) Judaism describes three levels of sin.

• Pesha - An intentional sin; an action committed in deliberate defiance of God;
• Ovon - This is a sin of lust or uncontrollable emotion. It is a sin done knowingly, but not done to defy God;
• Cheit - This is an unintentional sin.

Judaism holds that no human being is perfect, and all people have sinned many times. However a state of sin does not condemn a person to damnation; only one or two truly grievous sins lead to anything approaching the Christian hot hell.

How Halakha is viewed today

Orthodox Judaism holds that the words of the Torah (Pentateuch) were indeed dictated by God to Moses in almost precisely the way that they exist in the Torah today. The laws contained in the Written Torah were given along with detailed explanations, how to apply and interpret them. Some of the details of this additional transmission have been lost over the millennia and reconstructed in accordance with internally consistent rules. The collective corpus of this non-biblical revelation is called the Oral Law. It is these interpretations that constitute the basis of religious laws that Jews know today.

Conservative Judaism holds that the current text of the Torah is a composite that was redacted together from earlier sources. Conservative Jews hold that it is possible to believe that God is real and that prophets like Moses really were inspired by God. However, whatever records and traditions relating to such events were apparently transmitted in various forms for many centuries. This says nothing about whether the Torah is based on God or not, and so this idea not a theological threat. Therefore Conservative Judaism teaches that one should make use of literary and historical analysis to understand how these texts developed, and to help them understand how they may applied in our own day.

Conservative Jews view the laws and customs from the various law codes as the basis for normative Jewish law. Solomon Schechter writes "however great the literary value of a code may be, it does not invest it with infallibility, nor does it exempt it from the student or the Rabbi who makes use of it from the duty of examining each paragraph on its own merits, and subjecting it to the same rules of interpretation that were always applied to Tradition". [Solomon Schechter].

Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism both hold that modern views of how the Torah and rabbinic law developed imply that the body of rabbinic Jewish law is no longer normative (seen as binding) on Jews today. Therefore Jews are not expected or taught to follow most of halakha. Those in the traditionalist wing of these movements hold that each Jew is obligated to interpret the Torah, Talmud and other Jewish works for themselves, and this interpretation will create separate commandments for each person. Those in the neo-traditional wing of Reform include Rabbis Eugene Borowitz and Gunther Plaut.

Those in liberal and classical wing of Reform believe that in this day and era most Jewish religious rituals are no longer necessary, and many hold that following most Jewish laws are actually counter-productive. They propose that Judaism has entered a phase of ethical monotheism, and that the laws of Judaism are only remnants of an earlier stage of religious evolution, and should not be followed. This is considered heretical not only by Orthodoxy, but by Conservative Judaism, and perhaps by some in the traditional wing of Reform.

Gentiles and Jewish law

All denominations of Jews hold that gentiles are not obligated to follow Halakha; only Jews are obligated do so. Judaism has always held that gentiles are obligated only to follow the seven Noahide laws; these are laws that the oral law derives from the covenant God made with Noah after the flood, which apply to all descendants of Noah, i.e. all of mankind. The Noahide laws are derived in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 57a), and are listed here:

1. Murder is forbidden.
2. Theft is forbidden.
3. Sexual immorality is forbidden.
4. Eating the flesh of a living animal is forbidden.
5. Belief in, and/or prayer to idols is forbidden.
6. Blaspheming against God is forbidden.
7. All gentile societies must establish a system of legal justice to administer these laws.

Codes of Jewish law

The Torah and the Talmud are not formal codes of law; they are sources of law. There are many formal codes of Jewish law that have developed over the past few thousand years. The major codes are:

• The Mishnah, composed by Rabbi Judah the Prince, in 200 CE, as a basic outline of the state of the Oral Law in his time. This was the framework upon which the Talmud was based.

• The Hilchot of Raabbi Alfassi (1013-1103), summations of the legal material in the Talmud.

• The Mishnah Torah (also known as the Yad Ha-Hazaqah), by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam). The 14 volumes in this work encompass the full range of Jewish law, as formulated for all ages and places. It completely reorganizes and reformulates the laws in a logical system. It opens with a section on systematic philosophical theology, derived largely from Aristotelian science and metaphysics, which it regards as the most important component of Jewish law.

• The Sefer Mitzvot Gadol (The Semag) of Rabbi Moses ben Jacob of Coucy (13th century, Coucy, France.)

• The Arba'ah Turim (The Tur, The Four Columns) by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher. (1270 to 1343, Toledo, Spain.) The Tur followed Maimonides's precedent in arranging his work in a topical order. However, the Tur covers only those areas of Jewish religious law that were in force in the author's time. The code is divided into four main sections; almost all Jewish codes of law since this time have followed the Tur's arrangement of material.
  • Orah Hayyim - "The Path of Life" worship and ritual observance in the home and synagogue, through the course of the day, the weekly sabbath and the festival cycle.
  • Yoreh De'ah - "Teach Knowledge" assorted ritual prohibitions, dietary laws and regulations concerning menstrual impurity.
  • Even Ha-'Ezer ("The Rock of the Helpmate" marriage, divorce and other issues in family law).
  • Hoshen Mishpat - "The Breastplate of Judgment" The administration and adjudication of civil law.

• The Beis Yosef, and the Shulkhan Arukh of Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488 - 1575). The Beis Yosef is a huge commentary on the Tur in which Rabbi Karo clarifies the opinions of rabbinic authorities who lived after the time of Rabbi Yaakov. The Shulkhan Arukh is a more concise collection of the Beis Yosef. (Literally translated, Shulkhan Aurkh means "set table".) In writing the Shulkhan Arukh, Rabbi Yosef followed the chapter divisions of the Tur. Sephardic Jews use the Shulkhan Arukh as the basis for their daily practice.

• Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Cracow, Poland, 1525 to 1572) noted that the Shulkhan Arukh was based on the Sephardic tradition, and he created a series of glosses to be appended to the text of the Shulkhan Arukh for cases where Sephardi and Ashkenazi customs differed. The glosses are called Hamapah, the "Tablecloth" for the "Set Table". His comments are now incorporated into the body of all printed editions of the Shulkhan Arukh; they are printed in a different script.

• The Shulchan Aruch HaRav of Rabbi Shneiur Zalman of Liadi (c. 1800) was an attempt to recodify the law as it stood at that time; unfortunately, most of the work was lost in a fire prior to publication. It is held in esteem by some Hasidim.

• The Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried (Hungary 1804 to 1886). This book became immensely popular after its publication due to its simplicity. This work is not binding in the same way as the Mishneh Torah or the Shulkhan Arukh, and based on the very strict Hungarian customs of the 19th century. It is still popular among Orthodox Judaism, as a framework for study, if not always for practice.

• The Mishnah Berurah of Rabbi Yisroel Meir ha-Kohen, better known as The Chofetz Chaim. (Poland, 1838 to 1933). The Mishnah Berurah has become the authoritative halakhic guide for much of Orthodox Ashkenazic Jewry in the postwar period, supplanting the more scholarly Aruch haShulchan of Rabbi Yechiel Michel Halevi Epstein.

• "A Guide To Jewish Religious Practice", by Rabbi Isaac Klein, with contributions from the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly. This work is based on the previous traditional law codes, but written from a Conservative Jewish point of view. It is not accepted among Orthodox Jews.

See also: Judaism -- Responsa -- Law -- Mishpat Ivri

External links

• FAQ on halakha and Jewish law
• The Noahide laws
• Jewfaq.org's Halakhah article

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Halakha."

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Law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

simple:Law

This article is about law in society. For other article subjects named law see law (disambiguation).

This article is concerned with laws of politics and jurisprudence: rules of conduct which mandate and/or proscribe specified relationships among people and organizations; as well as punishments for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct.

In ethics and moral philosophy this type of law is often called a "human legal code" to distinguish it from more fundamental laws applicable to all beings (metaphysics, ontology). Such a body of laws can be seen as a legally-enforced ethical code or as a "secular moral code" (to the degree that political leaders replace religious leaders as moral examples). Because lawyers and jurists more than other professions are self-regulating, almost by definition, they are often held to higher standards of behaviour or at least a stricter etiquette. These concerns are not part of this article, because those expectations and disciplines are specific to each legal code. This article takes an English-speaking point of view and deals with other legal traditions and codes by way of comparison only.

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence refers to two different things. First, in common law jurisdictions, it means simply "case law", i.e. the law that is established through the decisions of the courts and other officials. Second, it means the philosophy of law, or legal theory, which studies not what the law is in a particular jurisdiction (say, Turkey or the United States) but law in general--i.e. those attributes common to all legal systems.

Jurisprudence in the second sense is conventionally divided into two parts: descriptive, or analytic, jurisprudence, and normative jurisprudence. Analytic jurisprudence studies what law 'is', normative jurisprudence studies what law 'ought to be'.

Among the most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are these: What is a law What is a legal system? What is the relationship between law and power? What is the relationship between law and justice or morality? Does every society have a legal system? How should we understand concepts like legal rights and legal obligations or duties? The most influential works of analytic jurisprudence include: Jeremy Bentham, Of Laws in General; Hans Kelsen, The Pure Theory of Law, H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, and Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire''.

Among the most important questions of normative jurisprudence are these: What is is the proper function of law? What sorts of acts should be subject to punishment, and what sorts of punishment should be permitted? What is justice? What rights do we have? Is there a duty to obey the law? What value has the rule of law? The most influential works of normative jurisprudence include all the classics of political philosophy. Among contemporary writers, the following have been particularly influential: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility; Joel Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law; Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom; Ronald Dworkin, A Matter of Principle

Codification of Law

Law is the formal codification of customs which have achieved such acceptance as become the enforced norm. The process of acceptance is accelerated by the existence of legislative bodies which seek to impose laws.

Law codification involves the legislation and regulation of statutes; as well as the resolution of disputes. In the civil law system codification is also an attempt to structure the law according to fundamental ethical principles to create a sense of order and simplicity that all members of society can comprehend, not merely university trained jurists. Stating the law in simple, precise terms, understandable to the lay person without a specialized legal education, is the only way they can reasonably obey it or be fairly sanctioned for not obeying it.

This overlaps with the idea of a formal social legal code as understood in ethics. This may be understandable to the educated lay person but perhaps not to the ordinary lay person. For example, one can explain the idea of precedent more easily than that of the reasonable man, but it may be much harder to explain why precedent is "fair" to one without "higher education". The following are examples of such lay explanations of different branches of law, and theories of law.

They are not comprehensive.

Branches of Law, a sampling

Please note: Wikipedia does not give legal advice.

• Administrative law refers to the body of law which regulates bureaucratic managerial procedures and is administered by the executive branch of a government; rather than the judicial or legislative branches (if they are different in that particular jurisdiction). This body of law regulates international trade, manufacturing, pollution, taxation, and the like. This is sometimes seen as a subcategory of civil law and sometimes called public law as it deals with regulation and public institutions.

• Canon law refers to laws of the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic churches.

• Case law (precedental law) regulates, via precedents, how laws are to be understood. Case law, also called common law or judge-made law, is derived from the body of rulings made by a country's courts. In the United States, the primary source of case law relating to federal and constitutional questions is the Supreme Court of the United States. The states, each with its own final court of appeals, generate case law that is only binding precedent in that state. In countries that were once part of the British Empire the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords are primary sources of case law, though not necessarily binding precedent, as each country has its own court of last resort.

• Civil law has three accepted meanings:
  • Secular law is the legal system of a theocratic government, such as that in England, during the reign of Henry II
  • Private law seeks to regulate relationships between persons and organizations including contracts and responsible behaviour such as through liability through negligence. This body of law enforces statutes or the common law by allowing a party, whose rights have been violated, to collect damages from a defendant. Where monetary damages are deemed insufficient, civil court may offer other remedies in equity; such as forbiding someone to do an act (eg; an injunction) or formally changing someone's legal status (eg; divorce). This body of law includes the law of torts in common law systems, or in civilian systems, the Law of Obligations.
  • The civilian legal system or civil law system is the general typology of legal systems found in most countries. It is an alternative to common law system and has its roots in Roman law. It is employed by almost every country that was not a colony of Great Britain. In most jurisdictions the civil law is codified in the form of a civil codes, but in some, like Scotland it remains uncodified. Most codes follow the Code Napolean in some fashion. Notably, the German code was developed from Roman law with reference to German legal tradition.

• Commercial law, often considered to be part of civil law, covers business and commerce relations including sales and business entities.

• Common law is derived from Anglo-Saxon customary law, also referred to as judge-made law, as it developed over the course of many centuries in the English courts. It is a system of law used in England, many of the states of the United States (except California and Louisiana) and other former British possessions such as in the Laws of Australia, Canada, India, and Ireland.

• Criminal law (penal law) is the body of laws which regulate governmental sanctions (such as imprisonment and/or fines) as retaliation for crimes against the social order.

• International law governs the relations between states, or between citizens of different states, or international organizations. Its two primary sources are customary law and treaties.

• Islamic law (Sharia), is derived from the Koran and used in many Middle Eastern nations; such as in the Laws of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

• Procedural Law are rules and regulations found in an legal system that regulate access to legal institutions such as the courts, including the filing of private lawsuits and regulating the treatment of defendants and convicts by the public criminal justice system. Within this field are laws regulating arrests and evidence, injunctions and pleadings. Procedural law defines the procedure by which law is to be enforced. See criminal procedure and civil procedure.

• Socialist law is the term for civil law as practiced within states of the former Soviet Union and its satellites; as well as within the Laws of China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. With the end of the Cold War, most of these nations are incorporating laws compatible with private property and capitalism.

Law as academic discipline and profession

In addition to being part of the societal framework law is also an academic discipline and a profession. Lawyers are sometimes called by other names, as in England where the profession is divided between solicitors and barristers. Sometimes they are also called notaries. They are professionally trained in the United States at graduate schools of law leading to the J.D degree (Juris Doctor). In other countries legal education is considered to start at the undergraduate stage taught in faculty of law leading to the LL.B or B.C.L degrees. NOTE: In Canada at least, the LL.B. requires a previous undergraduate degree to study. Law is an undergraduate degree mainly in civil law countries. Most of these schools also have advanced legal degrees such as the LL.M and the J.S.D degrees. Many persons who attend law school never practice law but use their knowledge of law in another profession. See Law (academic) and jurisprudence For law as a profession, see lawyer, jurist and practice of law.

Further Discussion

Most laws and legal systems --at least in the Western world-- are quite similar in their essential themes, arising from similar values and similar social, economic, and political conditions, and they typically differ less in their substantive content than in their jargon and procedures.

One of the fundamental similarities across different legal systems is that, to be of general approval and observation, a law has to appear to be public, effective, and legitimate, in the sense that it has to be available to the knowledge of the citizen in common places or means, it needs to contain instruments to grant its application, and it has to be issued under given formal procedures from a recognized authority.

In the context of most legal systems, laws are enacted through the processes of constitutional charter, constitutional amendment, legislation, executive order, rulemaking, and adjudication; within Common law jurisdictions, rulings by judges are an important additional source of legal rules.

However, de facto laws also come into existence through custom and tradition. (See generally Consuetudinary law; Anarchist law.)

Law has an anthropological dimension. In order to have a culture of law, people must dwell in a society where a government exists whose authority is hard to evade and generally recognised as legitimate. People forego personal revenge or self-help and choose instead to take their grievances before the government and its agents, who arbitrate disputes and enforce penalties.

This behaviour is contrasted with the culture of honor, where respect for persons and groups stems from fear of the disproportionate revenge they may exact if their person, property, or prerogatives are not respected. Cultures of law must be maintained. They can be eroded by declining respect for the law, achieved either by weak government unable to wield its authority, or by burdensome restrictions that attempt to forbid behaviour prevalent in the culture or in some subculture of the society. When a culture of law declines, there is a possibility that an undesirable culture of honor will arise in its place.

A particular society or community adopts a specific set of laws to regulate the behavior of its own members, to order life in its political territory, to grant or acknowledge the rights and privileges of its citizens and other people who may come under the jurisdiction of its courts, and to resolve disputes.

There are several distinct laws and legal traditions, and each jurisdiction has its own set of laws and its own legal system. Individually codified laws are known as statutes, and the collective body of laws relating to one subject or emanating from one source are usually identified by specific reference. (E.g., Roman law, Common law, and Criminal law.)

Moreover, the several different levels of government each produce their own laws, though the extent to which law is centralized varies. Thus, at any one place there can be conflicting laws in force at the local, regional, state, national, or international levels.

(See conflict of laws, Preemption of State and Local Laws.)

Legal systems and traditions

Anarchist law - Canon law - Civil law - Common law - English Law - European Union Law - International law - Roman law - Scottish Law - Socialist law - Sharia (Islamic law)

Legal subject areas

Administrative law - Admiralty - Alternative dispute resolution - Appellate review - Civil procedure - Civil rights - Commercial law - Comparative law - Consuetudinary law - Contracts - Constitutional law - Courts of England and Wales - Corporations law - Criminal law - Criminal procedure - Environmental law - Equity - Evidence - Family law - Human rights - Immigration - Intellectual property - Jurisprudence - Law and economics - Law of Obligations - Labor law - Land use - List of items for which possession is restricted - Philosophy of law - Practice of law - Private law - Procedural law - Property law - Statutory law - Tax law - Torts - Trusts and Estates - Cyber law

Subjects Auxiliary to Law

Government - Legal history - Law and literature - Political science

Terms, case law, legislation and other resources

• Law topics overview
• List of jurists
• List of legal topics
• List of basic criminal justice topics
• List of international public law topics

• List of Supreme Court of Canada cases
• List of Judicial Committees of the Privy Council & House of Lords cases
• List of United States Supreme Court cases
• List of leading legal cases in copyright law

• List of treaties
• List of Uniform Acts (United States)
• List of United States Federal Legislation

Legal books

• Black's Law Dictionary
• Halsbury's Laws of England
• Corpus Juris Secundum
• Recueil Dalloz

Further Reading

• Cheyenne Way: Conflict & Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, trade paperback, 374 pages, ISBN 0806118555
• Other books by Karl N. Llewellyn

See also

• law (principle),
• religious law,
• legal code,
• natural law

External link

• Law & Legal News & Reference
• Directory and Engine to find lawyers by area of expertise and/or by location

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Law."

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LAW

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

• LAW is a US Army light anti-tank weapon
• LAW is a law society called Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "LAW."

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Law (academic)

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

While Law is a part of society, the academic study of law, both as a science, that is, jurisprudence, and by students preparing to be lawyers is taught in the United States at specialized postgraduate law schools. In other countries the course of study is different, for example, in England, prospective lawyers simply major in law as an undergraduate, or take a special one year course in law after having majored in some other discipline.

The education of a lawyer is partly taken up with general principles of law and partly with the laws and procedures of the jurisdiction the law school is located in, that information being necessary for passing the bar in a specific jurisdiction.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Law (academic)."

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Law (disambiguation)

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Law can refer to more than one thing:

• In human society, law describes the body of words and institutions that regulate behavior and punishments for misconduct.
• In science, a law of nature or physical law is a statement that describes regular or patterned relationships among observable phenomena.
• Laws of logic and mathematics describe the nature of rational thought.
• Laws of economics and psychology describe the nature of human behavior and interaction.
• Many adages are popularly known as "laws"; such as Murphy's law.

''This is a disambiguation page; that is, one that just points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and fix that link to point to the appropriate specific page.'

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Law (disambiguation)."

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Law (principle)

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

(For law within legal systems see Law).

The term "law" is often used to refer to universal principles that describe the fundamental nature of something, to universal properties and relationships between things, or to descriptions that purport to explain these principles and relationships. For example, "physical law"s, or "scientific lawss" attempt to describe the fundamental nature of the universe itself. Laws of mathematics and logic describe the nature of rational thought and inference. Laws of economics describe the nature of human behavior and interaction.

Within most fields of study, and in science in particular, the elevation of some principle of that field to the status of "law" usually takes place after a very long time during which the principle is used and tested and verified. Though in some fields of study such laws are simply postulated as a foundation and assumed. Mathematical laws are somewhere in between: they are often arbitrary and unproven in themselves, but they are sometimes judged by how useful they are in making predictions about the real world.

Finally, the term is sometimes applied to less rigorous ideas that may be interesting observations or relationships, practical or ethical guidelines (also called rules of thumb), and even humorous parodies of such laws.

Examples of scientific laws include Boyle's law of gases, conservation laws, Ohm's law, and others. Laws of other fields of study include Occam's razor as a principle of philosophy and the Pareto principle of economics. Examples of observed phenomena often described as laws include the Titius-Bode law of planetary positions, Zipf's law of linguistics, Moore's law of technological growth. Other laws are pragmatic and observational, such as the law of unintended consequences.

Some humorous parodies of such laws include adages such as Murphy's law and its many variants, and Godwin's law of Internet conversations.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Law (principle)."

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Law school

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

In the United States, the institution where future lawyers obtain a legal degree is called a law school. In most cases, law schools grant the J.D, though some schools still award the LL.B degree which is still common in other common law jurisdictions, mostly commonwealth countries. A law school is usually an autonomous entity within a larger university and considered to be a graduate school program. In other jurisdictions these programs are more completely integrated into the other university faculties, such as in Canada where they are often called a faculty of law. Even though the first degree is considered at doctoral degree the other degrees that are awarded included the Master of Laws degree (L.L.M.) and the Doctor of Laws degree (J.S.D.).

See also: List of law schools, school of law

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Law school."

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Library of Congress Classification:Class K -- Law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Class K: Law is a classification used by the Library of Congress classification system. This page outline the sub-classes of Class K.

	K	Law in general; Comparative and uniform law; Jurisprudence
	KBR	History of canon law
	KBU	Law of the Roman Catholic Church; The Holy See
	KD to KDK	Law of the United Kingdom and Ireland
	KDZ	America; North America
	KE	Law of Canada
	KF	Law of the United States
	KG	Latin America - Mexico and Central America - West Indies; Caribbean area
	KH	South America
	KJ to KKZ	European Law
	KL to KWX	Asia and Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Area, and Antarctica
	KZ	Law of Nations

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Library of Congress Classification:Class K -- Law."

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Physical law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

This article is about law in science, for law as it refers to the legal system see: law

A physical law or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations. It is different from a theory which is a framework designed to make predictions and to explain physical laws. Laws of nature are different from legal code (see law). Legal code is the creation of man, sometimes perhaps inspired by higher beings. Laws of nature are conclusions from scientific experiments. Some of the more famous laws of nature are Isaac Newton's theories of (now) classical mechanics, presented in his Principia Mathematica and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

Within most fields of study, and in science in particular, the elevation of some principle of that field to the status of "law" usually takes place after a very long time during which the principle is used and tested and verified. Though in some fields of study such laws are simply postulated as a foundation and assumed.

Mathematical laws are something in between: they are often arbitrary and unproven in themselves, but they are then judged by how useful they are in making predictions about the real world.

• Examples of scientific laws include Boyle's law of gases, conservation laws, Ohm's law, the four laws of thermodynamics and others.
• Laws of other fields of study include Occam's razor as a principle of philosophy and the Pareto principle of economics.
• Examples of observed phenomena often described as laws include the Titius-Bode law of planetary positions, Zipf's law of linguistics, Moore's law of technological growth. Other laws are pragmatic and observational, such as the law of unintended consequences.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Physical law."

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Precedent

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Precedent is the principle in law of using the past in order to assist in current interpretation and decision-making. Precedent can be of two types. Binding or mandatory precedent is a precedent under the doctrine of stare decisis that a court must consider when deciding a case. Advisory precedent are cases which a court may use but is not required to use to decide its cases. In general, binding precedent involves decisions made by a higher court in a common law jurisdiction.

Precedent in law can also be divided into custom and case law.

Long-held custom which has traditionally been recognized by courts and judges is the first kind of precedent. Custom can be so deeply entrenched in the society at large that it gains the force of law. There need never have been a specific case decided on the same or similar issues in order for a court to take notice of customary or traditional precedent in its deliberations.

The other type of precedent is case law. This type of precedent is granted more or less weight in the deliberations of a court according to a number of factors. Most important is whether the precedent is "on point," that is, does it deal with a circumstance identical or very similar to the circumstance in the instant case? Second, when and where was the precedent decided? A recent decision in the same jurisdiction as the instant case will be given great weight. Next in descending order would be recent precedent in jurisdictions whose law is the same as local law. Least weight would be given to precedent which stems from dissimilar circumstances, older cases which have since been contradicted, or cases in jurisdictions which have dissimilar law.

Precedents viewed against passing time can serve to establish trends, thus indicating the next logical step in evolving interpetations of the law. For instance, if women have been enjoying greater and greater equality under the law, then the next legal decision on that subject may serve to bring still greater equality.

See also: stare decisis

The argument on setting a precedent is a common fallacy in discussion. It consists in saying that to act correctly in circumstances X would be inadvisable, in case others consider that this would set a precedent for acting in circumstances Y, where (it is argued) X and Y are superficially similar but (on close examination) are in fact radically different.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Precedent."

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Property law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Property law is the law that in the common law legal system governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or moveable possessions) and in personal property. In the civil law system the division is called movable and immovable property. Movable, roughly corresponding to personal property and immovable to real estate or real property and the associated rights and obligations thereon.

The concept, idea or philosophy of property underlies all property law. In some jurisdictions, historically all property was owned by the monarch and it devolved through feudal land tenure or other feudal systems of loyalty and fealty to the monarch.

The French Revolution introduced the idea of the absolute ownership of property, it is such ownership that was introduced into the civil law by the Code Napoleon. This is in contradistinction with the ideas of property in common law that remained tied to their feudal past.

See also: Personal property, Property, Exclusive right, Usucaption, Usufruct

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Property law."

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Religious law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

In the religious sense, law has several meanings:

Law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by God defining and governing all human affairs.

Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by God. Examples include customary Hindu law, Islamic law, and the divine law of the Mosaic code or Torah.

State churches and similar established religions are branches of the governments that establish them. In some jurisdictions, this means that they operate legal systems of their own or play a part in the legal system of those governments. Canon law is one such sort of legal system; it was administered in ecclesiastical courts. In England, the system of equity was originally established by the Church.

In Christianity, law is often contrasted with grace: the contrast here speaks to attempts to gain salvation by obedience to the code of laws, as opposed to seeking salvation through faith in the atonement made by Jesus on the cross. Compare legalism and antinomianism.

See also Law.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Religious law."

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United States Code

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

United States Code

The general and permanent laws of the United States of America.

Title 1	General Provisions
Title 2	The Congress
Title 3	The President
Title 4	Flag and Seal, Seat Of Government, and the States
Title 5	Government Organization and Employees
Title 6	Surety Bonds (repealed)
Title 7	Agriculture
Title 8	Aliens and Nationality
Title 9	Arbitration
Title 10	Armed Forces (including the Uniform Code of Military Justice)
Title 11	Bankruptcy
Title 12	Banks and Banking
Title 13	Census
Title 14	Coast Guard
Title 15	Commerce and Trade
Title 16	Conservation
Title 17	Copyrights
Title 18	Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Title 19	Customs Duties
Title 20	Education
Title 21	Food and Drugs
Title 22	Foreign Relations and Intercourse
Title 23	Highways
Title 24	Hospitals and Asylums
Title 25	Indians
Title 26	Internal Revenue Code
Title 27	Intoxicating Liquors
Title 28	Judiciary and Judicial Procedure
Title 29	Labor
Title 30	Mineral Lands and Mining
Title 31	Money and Finance
Title 32	National Guard
Title 33	Navigation and Navigable Waters
Title 34	Navy (repealed)
Title 35	Patents
Title 36	Patriotic Societies and Observances
Title 37	Pay and Allowances Of the Uniformed Services
Title 38	Veterans' Benefits
Title 39	Postal Service
Title 40	Public Buildings, Property, and Works
Title 41	Public Contracts
Title 42	The Public Health and Welfare
Title 43	Public Lands
Title 44	Public Printing and Documents
Title 45	Railroads
Title 46	Shipping
Title 47	Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs
Title 48	Territories and Insular Possessions
Title 49	Transportation
Title 50	War and National Defense

External Link

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html - United States Code

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "United States Code."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Law

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Synonyms within Context: Law

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Modern Usage: Law

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Commercial Usage: Law

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Image Slideshow: Law

Photos: Law More pictures...

Illustrations: Law More pictures...

Computer Images: Law More pictures...

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Photo Album: Law

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Law office shingle - Either lawyer humor or an avid fisherman. Credit: America's Coastlines.		Salmon being counted when passing through weirs. By law, a certain percentage of salmon runs had to be allowed to escape commercial fisheries in order to spawn. To check the percentage, counting weirs were maintained on many streams. F&W - 10,111. Credit: Fisheries.
	A restoration worker uses a marine radio on board the Cunan Law to prepare for a site visit. Credit: NOAA Restoration Center.		Small boats, rigid hull inflatables, were used to support the restoration effort. Divers left the Cunan Law, where they were housed and fed, and were transported to the reef by the tenders. Credit: NOAA Restoration Center.
	Let sleeping dogs lie unless the car starts to back up. Apparently there was no leash law at Puntarenas as dogs seemed to roam about the town at will. Credit: Small World.		Law Enforcement Ranger arresting a member of the public. Credit: Lori Cook.
	A member of BLM law enforcement shows the way to explorers of Arizona lands. Credit: Unknown.		Front (east) portico. Photograph by Jack E. Boucher, November 1959. (Reproduction Number: HABS, VT, 14-WOOD,1-4) Job Lyman, a young lawyer from Northampton, Massachusetts, finished this house in the village of Woodstock in 1810. He and his bride, Mary Hall, lived in it for many years while Job practiced law in town. The finely carved Neoclassical detailing on the entrance porch suggests Lyman's refined taste and the prosperity of Woodstock at the time of construction. Decorated with fluted Ionic columns and scrolled ornament, the porch also features steps made of granite from a nearby quarry. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Doctor In Law Or Physic, in Congregation Robes. / T. Uwins delt. J. Agar sculpt. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		Love. Law. Physic. / Marks fec. Credit: National Library of Medicine.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Law
 

"Law Series 4" by Peter Skadberg Commentary: "Law series. Use is free on approved usage. Contact is required. We respond within 24 hours. ."	"Cambridge Law" by Philip Jackson Commentary: "Cambridge Law Facility."
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Familiar Quotations: Law

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Historic Usage: Law