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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

Precedent is a principle or rule established in a legal case that becomes authoritative to a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar legal issues or facts. The legal doctrine stating that courts should follow precedent is called stare decisis (a Latin phrase with the literal meaning "to stand by things decided").

Common-law legal systems often view precedent as binding or persuasive, while civil law systems do not. Common-law systems aim for similar facts to yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observing precedent when making decisions is the mechanism to achieve that goal. Common-law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (that is, statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies) and subordinate legislation (that is, regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies, in the form of delegated legislation) in UK parlance – or regulatory law (in US parlance).

Case law, in common-law jurisdictions, is the set of decisions of adjudicatory tribunals or other rulings that can be cited as precedent. In most countries, including most European countries, the term is applied to any set of rulings on law, which is guided by previous rulings, for example, previous decisions of a government agency. Essential to the development of case law is the publication and indexing of decisions for use by lawyers, courts, and the general public, in the form of law reports. A precedent is a historical setting example for the future (though at varying levels of authority as discussed throughout this article), some become "leading cases" or "landmark decisions" that are cited especially often.

Generally speaking, a legal precedent may be:

applied (if precedent is binding) / adopted (if precedent is persuasive), if the principles underpinning the previous decision are accordingly used to evaluate the issues of the subsequent case;
distinguished, if the principles underpinning the previous decision are found specific to, or premised upon, certain factual scenarios, and not applied to the subsequent case because of the absence or material difference in the latter's facts;
modified, if the same court on determination of the same case on order from a higher court modified one or more parts of the previous decision; or
overruled, if the same or higher courts on appeal or determination of subsequent cases found the principles underpinning the previous decision erroneous in law or overtaken by new legislation or developments.

In contrast, civil law systems adhere to a legal positivism, where past decisions do not usually have the precedential, binding effect that they have in common law decision-making; the judicial review practiced by constitutional courts can be regarded as a notable exception. (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 Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs′ legal challenge to be added to the Amsterdam electoral rolls backfired, leading to a constitutional amendment granting voting rights only to men?

... that in English law, legal relations created in a social context are not considered binding?

... that in 2011, Argentinian lawyer Elsa Kelly (pictured) was appointed the first women judge on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea?

... that the English Statute of Enrolments, believed to have been emergency legislation, contains no preamble and was drafted by the Clerk of the House of Commons rather than a legislator?

... that when Henry McCardie was a barrister, he often worked so late that his chambers were nicknamed "the lighthouse", as there was light coming from the windows?

... that the diaries of James Humphreys, the "Emperor of Porn", were used to convict 13 policemen of accepting his bribes?

... that a kidney transplantation scandal led to a 2011 amendment to the law on organ donation in India?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

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...)

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare Pty Ltd, (Baxter) was a decision of the High Court of Australia, which ruled on 29 August 2007 that Baxter Healthcare Proprietary Limited, a tenderer for various government contracts, was bound by the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA, Australian legislation governing anti-competitive behaviour) in its trade and commerce in tendering for government contracts. More generally, the case concerned the principles of derivative governmental immunity: whether the immunity of a government from a statute extends to third parties that conduct business with the government.

The High Court's judgment marked a successful appeal for the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the Australian regulator of anti-competitive conduct, having lost at first instance and on appeal in the Federal Court of Australia. The ACCC was again successful when the case was remitted to the Federal Court for reconsideration, ending eight years of litigation between the parties. The High Court's judgment was received as a significant precedent in the law of derivative governmental immunity in Australia. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the Colonial Office refused to appoint Cyrus Prudhomme David to the magistracy, considering it wrong "as a matter of policy" to appoint a second Black man to a legal post in Trinidad and Tobago?
... that a 1982 court case established that video games may qualify for multiple types of U.S. copyright protection?
... that William E. Woods took three same-sex couples to fill out marriage licenses in 1990, beginning a series of events that would lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States?
... that, before same-sex unions were legally recognised in the UK, the London Partnership Register allowed nearly 1,000 couples to celebrate their relationships?
... that the presence of illegal colleges in Saumlaki was compared to "mushrooms growing in the rainy season"?
... that the BK inequality was used to identify implausibly lucky Florida Lottery winners, whose involvement in illegal activities was later confirmed by investigations?

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General images

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

Image 1Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (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 4Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 5The 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 6Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 7The 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 8Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 9Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 10King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 11Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 12Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 13Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (from Judiciary)
Image 14Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)

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