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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...)

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Selected article

Scientific jury selection, often abbreviated SJS, is the use of social science techniques and expertise to choose favorable juries during a criminal or civil trial. Scientific jury selection is used during the jury selection phase of the trial, during which lawyers have the opportunity to question jurors. It almost always entails an expert's assistance in the attorney's use of peremptory challenges—the right to reject a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason—during jury selection. The practice is currently unique to the American legal system.

SJS has roots in criminal trials during the Vietnam War era, but in modern times is usually employed in high-stakes civil litigation (where only money is usually at issue, in contrast to criminal trials, where the defendant can go to prison). SJS practitioners determine what background characteristics and attitudes predict favorable results, and then coordinate with attorneys in choosing the jury. Studies are mixed as to the effectiveness of the practice, though it is clear that the evidence presented at trial is the most important determiner of verdicts (the trial result) and that SJS is more likely to have an impact where that evidence is ambiguous. SJS's potential to unfairly skew the jury has led to some reform proposals, but none have yet been implemented. (Full article...)

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Ioan Constantin Filitti (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈo̯aŋ konstanˈtin fiˈliti]; first name also Ion; Francized Jean C. Filitti; May 8, 1879 – September 21, 1945) was a Romanian historian, diplomat and conservative theorist, best remembered for his contribution to social history, legal history, genealogy and heraldry. A member of the Conservative Party and an assistant of its senior leader Titu Maiorescu, he had aristocratic (boyar) origins and an elitist perspective. Among his diverse contributions, several focus on 19th-century modernization under the Regulamentul Organic regime, during which Romania was ruled upon by the Russian Empire. As a historian, Filitti is noted for his perfectionism, and for constantly revising his own works.

I. C. Filitti had an auspicious debut in diplomacy and politics, but his career was mired in controversy. A "Germanophile" by the start of World War I, he secretly opposed the pact between Romania and the Entente Powers, and opted to stay behind in German-occupied territory. He fell into disgrace for serving the collaborationist Lupu Kostaki as Prefect and head of the National Theater, although he eventually managed to overturn his death sentence for treason. Filitti became a recluse, focusing on his scholarship and press polemics, but was allowed to serve on the Legislative Council after 1926.

In his political tracts, written well after the Conservative Party's demise, I. C. Filitti preserves the orthodox conservative principles of Maiorescu. His attachment to boyar tradition was expanded into a critique of centralized government, etatism and Romanian liberalism. Toward the end of his life, he supported the dictatorial regime known as National Renaissance Front. (Full article...)

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Selected statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body, a stage in the process of legislation. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are laws made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, regulations issued by government agencies, and oral or customary law.^{[better source needed]} Statutes may originate with the legislative body of a country, state or province, county, or municipality. (Full article...)

The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-830) was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. It became the focus of a major political controversy after opponents nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist plot to hospitalize and brainwash Americans. Campaigners asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States.

The legislation in its original form was sponsored by the Democratic Party, but after it ran into opposition, it was rescued by the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Under Goldwater's sponsorship, a version of the legislation without the commitment provisions that were the target of intense opposition from a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups was passed by the United States Senate. The controversy still plays a prominent role in the Church of Scientology's account of its campaign against psychiatry.

The Act succeeded in its initial aim of establishing a mental health care system for Alaska, funded by income from lands allocated to a mental health trust. However, during the 1970s and early 1980s, Alaskan politicians systematically stripped the trust of its lands, transferring the most valuable land to private individuals and state agencies. The asset stripping was eventually ruled to be illegal following several years of litigation, and a reconstituted mental health trust was established in the mid-1980s. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that The Urban Lawyer is the largest circulating government law journal in the world?

... that prior to the Recreational Charities Act 1958, the English courts refused to accept any charities involving recreational activities as valid?

... that, according to a US Supreme Court decision, the Fourth Amendment does not always apply to searches at the border?

... that their loss in Watson v British Boxing Board of Control forced the British Boxing Board of Control to move to Wales?

... that the professors of the law school of Beirut drafted parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis, a fundamental work in Roman jurisprudence?

... that John Verney became a Member of Parliament to gain contacts to help him in his career as a barrister?

... that the Bartley-Fox Law mandated a one-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of illegally carrying a firearm in Massachusetts?

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Selected images

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

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...)

Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that followed the death of one member of a Native American tribe at the hands of another on reservation land. Crow Dog was a member of the Brulé band of the Lakota Sioux. On August 5, 1881 he shot and killed Spotted Tail, a Lakota chief; there are different accounts of the background to the killing. The tribal council dealt with the incident according to Sioux tradition, and Crow Dog paid restitution to the dead man's family. However, the U.S. authorities then prosecuted Crow Dog for murder in a federal court. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang.

The defendant then petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the federal court had no jurisdiction to try cases where the offense had already been tried by the tribal council. The court found unanimously for the plaintiff and Crow Dog was therefore released. This case was the first time in history that an Indian was held on trial for the murder of another Indian. The case led to the Major Crimes Act in 1885, which placed some major crimes (initially seven, now 15) under federal jurisdiction if committed by an Indian against another Indian on a reservation or tribal land. This case was the beginning of the plenary power legal doctrine that has been used in Indian case law to limit tribal sovereignty. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that police officers had to be flown in by helicopter to seize hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of cannabis plants found growing illegally in Jerrawangala National Park?
... that until a 1982 legal decision, women were not permitted to stand at the bar at El Vino in London?
... that the BK inequality was used to identify implausibly lucky Florida Lottery winners, whose involvement in illegal activities was later confirmed by investigations?
... that Freedom of Religion South Africa filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to keep child spanking legal?
... that South African nurse Stella Madzimbamuto filed an appeal in 1968 with the Privy Council of the United Kingdom that resulted in the Rhodesian government being declared illegal?
... that Hirsch Sommerhausen worked as a court translator in a dozen languages?

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General images

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

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

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