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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 group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals may create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that adopt alternative ways of resolving disputes to standard court litigation. 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. Historically, religious law has influenced secular matters and is, as of the 21st century, still in use in some religious communities. Sharia law based on Islamic principles is used as the primary legal system in several countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

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

The modern system of county courts in England and Wales was established by the County Courts Act 1846. The Act created 491 courts on 60 circuits; of these, 53 courts were in Wales and Monmouthshire (a Welsh county that had ambiguous status at the time and was sometimes treated as being in England). Since then, new courts have been opened in various locations, and 80 towns and cities in Wales have, or have had, county courts. As of 2012, there are 20 county courts in Wales. The courts in the other 60 locations have closed. Reasons for closure have included a decision that it was "inexpedient" to continue to provide a court, the volume of business no longer justifying a court, or the state of the building housing the court. The first closure was Fishguard, in 1856; the most recent closures are the county courts in Aberdare and Pontypool, which closed on 1 August 2011.

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Selected biography

Sir William Garrow PC KC FRS (13 April 1760 – 24 September 1840) was an English barrister, politician and judge known for his indirect reform of the advocacy system, which helped usher in the adversarial court system used in most common law nations today. He introduced the phrase "presumed innocent until proven guilty", insisting that defendants' accusers and their evidence be thoroughly tested in court. Born to a priest and his wife in Monken Hadley, then in Middlesex, Garrow was educated at his father's school in the village before being apprenticed to Thomas Southouse, an attorney in Cheapside, which preceded a pupillage with Mr. Crompton, a special pleader. A dedicated student of the law, Garrow frequently observed cases at the Old Bailey; as a result Crompton recommended that he become a solicitor or barrister. Garrow joined Lincoln's Inn in November 1778, and was called to the Bar on 27 November 1783. He quickly established himself as a criminal defence counsel, and in February 1793 was made a King's Counsel by HM Government to prosecute cases involving treason and felonies.

He was elected to Parliament in 1805 for Gatton, a rotten borough, and became Solicitor General for England in 1812 and Attorney General for England a year later. Although not happy in Parliament, having been returned only for political purposes, Garrow acted as one of the principal Whig spokesmen trying to stop criminal law reform as campaigned for by Samuel Romilly and also attempted to pass legislation to condemn animal cruelty. In 1817, he was made a Baron of the Exchequer and a Serjeant-at-Law, forcing his resignation from Parliament, and he spent the next 15 years as a judge. He was not particularly successful in the commercial cases the Exchequer specialised in, but when on Assize, used his criminal law knowledge from his years at the Bar to great effect. On his resignation in 1832 he was made a Privy Councillor, a sign of the respect HM Government had for him. He died on 24 September 1840. (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 Defective Premises Act 1972 (c. 35) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that covers landlords' and builders' liability for poorly constructed and poorly maintained buildings, along with any injuries that may result. During the 19th century, the common law principle that a landlord could not be liable for letting a poorly maintained house was established, while a long-running principle was that, in practice, builders could not be sued for constructing defective buildings. The courts began to turn against the first principle during the 20th century, imposing several restrictions on the landlord's immunity, but the landlord was still largely free from being sued.

The Defective Premises Bill was introduced to the House of Commons as a private member's bill by Ivor Richard on 1 December 1971, and given the royal assent on 29 June 1972, coming into force as the Defective Premises Act 1972 on 1 January 1974. The act establishes a duty of care builders and their sub-contractors owe to the occupiers of property they construct or modify, and also establishes a duty of care landlords hold towards their tenants and any third parties who might be injured by their failure to maintain or repair property. The act received a mixed reaction from critics; while some complimented it on its simple nature compared to the previously complex common rule laws, others felt that it was too limited for what was desired to be achieved, and that the wording used was at times both too vague and too specific. (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?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

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...)

Gyles v Wilcox (1740) 26 ER 489 was a decision of the Court of Chancery of England that established the doctrine of fair abridgement, which would later evolve into the concept of fair use. The case was heard and the opinion written by Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, and concerned Fletcher Gyles, a bookseller who had published a copy of Matthew Hale's Pleas of the Crown. Soon after the initial publication, the publishers Wilcox and Nutt hired a writer named Barrow to abridge the book, and repackaged it as Modern Crown Law. Gyles sued for a stay on the book's publishing, claiming his rights under the Statute of Anne had been infringed.

The main issues in the case were whether or not abridgements of a work inherently constituted copyright infringement, or whether they could qualify as a separate, new work. Lord Hartwicke ruled that abridgements fell under two categories: "true abridgements" and "coloured shortenings". True abridgements presented a true effort on the part of the editor, and by this effort, constituted a new work which did not infringe upon the copyright of the original. Leaving it to literary and legal experts to decide, Hartwicke ruled that Modern Crown Law was not a true abridgement, but merely a duplication intending to circumvent the law. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Singaporean broadcaster Lee Fook Hong legally changed his name to Lee Dai Sor (literally 'Lee Big Fool' in Cantonese) after being accused of tax evasion?
... that in the 1951 court case Kuzych v White, on appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, five law lords of the British Judicial Committee ruled in favour of a Communist-led trade union?
... that under early English common law a person became legally dead when they entered a religious order?
... that Guajajara environmental activist and land defender Paulo Paulino Guajajara, who worked to stop the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, was killed by a group of illegal loggers?
... that Bumper Pool legally changed his name to Bumper when he was 16 because of his father's childhood love for bumper pool?
... that British outrage at the sentencing of a white Kenyan settler to just two years' imprisonment for the 1923 killing of a black employee eventually led to the replacement of the colony's legal code?

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General images

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 (from Judiciary)
Image 2Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 3Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 4Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 5Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)
Image 6The 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 7King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 8Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 9Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 10Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 11Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)
Image 12The 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 13Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 14Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)

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