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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 FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a most wanted list maintained by the United States's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service (the predecessor of the United Press International) editor-in-chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the FBI's "toughest guys". This discussion turned into a published article, which received so much positive publicity that on March 14, 1950, the FBI officially announced the list to increase law enforcement's ability to capture dangerous fugitives. The first person added to the list was Thomas J. Holden, a robber and member of the Holden–Keating Gang on the day of the list's inception.

Individuals are generally only removed from the list if they are captured, die, or if the charges against them are dropped; they are then replaced by a new entry selected by the FBI. In eleven cases, the FBI removed individuals from the list after deciding that they were no longer a "particularly dangerous menace to society". Machetero member Víctor Manuel Gerena, added to the list in 1984, was on the list for 32 years, which was longer than anyone else. Billie Austin Bryant spent the shortest amount of time on the list, being listed for two hours in 1969. The oldest person to be added to the list was Eugene Palmer on May 29, 2019, at 80 years old. On rare occasions, the FBI will add a "Number Eleven" if that individual is extremely dangerous but the Bureau does not feel any of the current ten should be removed. Despite occasional references in the media, the FBI does not rank their list; no suspect is considered "#1 on the FBI's Most Wanted List" or "The Most Wanted". (Full article...)

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Selected biography

A large crowd of predominantly black people are seen on the march.

The Jena Six were six black teenagers in Jena, Louisiana, convicted in the 2006 beating of Justin Barker, a white student at the local Jena High School, which they also attended. Barker was injured on December 4, 2006 by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment at an emergency room. While the case was pending, it was often cited by some media commentators as an example of racial injustice in the United States. Some commentators believed that the defendants had been charged initially with too-serious offenses and had been treated unfairly.

A number of events had taken place in and around Jena in the months before the Barker assault, which the media have associated with an alleged escalation of local racial tensions. These events included: the hanging of rope nooses from a tree in the high school courtyard, two violent confrontations between white and black youths, and the destruction by fire of the main building of Jena High School. Extensive news coverage related to the Jena Six often reported these events as linked. Federal and parish attorneys concluded from their investigations that assessment was inaccurate for some of the events; for instance, the burning of the high school was an attempt to destroy grade records. (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 Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw. 7. c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the auxiliary forces of the British Army by transferring existing Volunteer and Yeomanry units into a new Territorial Force (TF); and disbanding the Militia to form a new Special Reserve of the Regular Army. This reorganisation formed a major part of the Haldane Reforms, named after the creator of the Act, Richard Haldane.

The lessons learned during the South African War of 1899-1902 had reinforced the idea that the Regular Army was not capable of fighting a prolonged full-scale war without significant assistance; almost all regular units in the United Kingdom had been deployed overseas within four months of the outbreak of hostilities. Furthermore, by the end of the first year of fighting, the Regular Reserve and the Militia Reserve had been entirely exhausted. (Regular reservists were members of the Regular Army who had retired from the active-duty portion of their service but remained available for the callout. The Militia Reserve was a pool of individuals within the Militia, who accepted an overseas service liability). There had been no thought before the war about the wider use of auxiliary forces overseas; in the event, volunteers had been used on an ad-hoc basis, and a new auxiliary arm (the Imperial Yeomanry) was formed to provide specialist troops, but it was clear that a more effective system was required in future. A number of attempts at reform under the Conservative government of 1901-1905 had failed to make any lasting changes to the system and left the auxiliary forces disorganised and demoralised.

Despite his efforts, several groups vocally opposed his approach: first, the National Service League, led by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and backed by retired senior officers and some Conservative MPs. They argued that auxiliary forces would be ineffective against Continental armies, even, at one point, enlisting the support of the king. At the same time, the Labour Party members generally opposed any increase in military strength. Further opposition came from protagonists of the existing system, especially the militia. In the face of all these forces, Haldane made a series of last-minute changes to the bill when he presented it in March 1907, including restricting compulsory service to Home defence only. Nevertheless, the structure remained much larger than was likely to be necessary for home defence and included all the supporting arms and services for the planned fourteen full divisions and he commented that 'they could go abroad if they wish.' The bill was put before the Commons on 4 March, then debated in late March and throughout April, where it received prolific but disorganised opposition, mainly from partisans of the existing system. It had its third reading in June, passing with a comfortable majority, and received the Royal Assent in August; the Act became effective immediately, though the bulk of its reforms were scheduled to begin on 1 April 1908. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that English professor Alice D. Snyder helped lead the campaign that earned New York women the right to vote?

... that per a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, U.S. states are immune from private suits against them in courts of other states without their consent?

... that between 1970 and 1984 the WE Seal of approval program aided in an estimated US$100,000 in restitution being made to collectors of comics and other memorabilia victimized by mail fraud?

... that at oral argument in NIFLA v. Becerra, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan questioned whether a California law was "gerrymandered" in order to discriminate against crisis pregnancy centers?

... that the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland of 1815, considered among the most liberal constitutions of its time, was increasingly disregarded by the Polish government, leading to the November Uprising of 1830?

... that the red dresses in Métis artist Jaime Black's REDress Project represent the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Canada and the USA?

... that after the death of Olaseni Lewis, who was restrained by 11 police officers, UK law was changed to require police to wear body cameras when dealing with vulnerable people?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

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...)

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928), is a leading case in American tort law on the question of liability to an unforeseeable plaintiff. The case was heard by the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York; its opinion was written by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo, a leading figure in the development of American common law and later a United States Supreme Court justice.

The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was waiting at a Long Island Rail Road station in August 1924 while taking her daughters to the beach. Two men attempted to board the train before hers; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. After the incident, she began to stammer, and subsequently sued the railroad, arguing that its employees had been negligent while assisting the man, and that she had been harmed by the neglect. In May 1927 she obtained a jury verdict of $6,000, which the railroad appealed. Palsgraf gained a 3–2 decision in the Appellate Division, and the railroad appealed again. Cardozo wrote for a 4–3 majority of the Court of Appeals, ruling that there was no negligence because the employees, in helping the man board, did not have a duty of care to Palsgraf as injury to her was not a foreseeable harm from aiding a man with a package. The original jury verdict was overturned, and the railroad won the case.

A number of factors, including the bizarre facts and Cardozo's outstanding reputation, made the case prominent in the legal profession, and it remains so, taught to most if not all American law students in torts class. Cardozo's conception, that tort liability can only occur when a defendant breaches a duty of care the defendant owes to a plaintiff, causing the injury sued for, has been widely accepted in American law. In dealing with proximate cause, many states have taken the approach championed by the Court of Appeals' dissenter in Palsgraf, Judge William S. Andrews. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that "illegal operation" was a common euphemism for abortion in early-20th-century North American newspapers?
... that until a 1982 legal decision, women were not permitted to stand at the bar at El Vino in London?
... that no one laughed at the worst joke in legal history?
... that Australia-born rugby union player Jason Jones-Hughes was the subject of a protracted legal battle over his international eligibility after Wales called him up for the 1999 Rugby World Cup?
... 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 Russian money, known as qiang tie by locals, was used as legal currency in some regions of China for decades?

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

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