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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 Leges Henrici Primi or Laws of Henry I is a legal treatise, written in about 1115, that records the legal customs of medieval England in the reign of King Henry I of England. Although it is not an official document, it was written by someone apparently associated with the royal administration. It lists and explains the laws, and includes explanations of how to conduct legal proceedings. Although its title implies that these laws were issued by King Henry, it lists laws issued by earlier monarchs that were still in force in Henry's reign; the only law of Henry that is included is the coronation charter he issued at the start of his reign. It covers a diverse range of subjects, including ecclesiastical cases, treason, murder, theft, feuds, assessment of danegeld, and the amounts of judicial fines.

The work survives in six manuscripts that range in date from about 1200 to around 1330, belonging to two different manuscript traditions. Besides the six surviving manuscripts, three others were known to scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries, but have not survived to the present day. Two other separate copies may also have existed. The complete work itself was first printed in 1644, but an earlier partial edition appeared in 1628. The Leges is the first legal treatise in English history, and has been credited with having greater effect on the views of English law before the reign of King Henry II than any other work of its kind. (Full article...)

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George Morison Robertson (February 26, 1821 – March 12, 1867) was an early politician and judge in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Born in Scotland, he settled in Hawaii in 1844 during the whaling era. During his career in Hawaii, he served in many political and judicial posts including circuit judge and police court judge, member of the Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles, a multiple-term representative in the Hawaiian legislature, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii and Minister of the Interior. (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 Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the Reform Act 1832, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electoral system of England and Wales. It reapportioned constituencies to address the unequal distribution of seats and expanded franchise by broadening and standardising the property qualifications to vote. Only qualifying men were able to vote; the Act introduced the first explicit statutory bar to women voting by defining a voter as a male person.

Before the reform, most members nominally represented boroughs. The number of electors in a borough varied widely however, from a dozen or so up to 12,000. Frequently the selection of Members of Parliament (MPs) was effectively controlled by one powerful patron: for example Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, controlled eleven boroughs. Criteria for qualification for the franchise varied greatly among boroughs, from the requirement to own land, to merely living in a house with a hearth sufficient to boil a pot. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Act 2007 allows social security information to be passed to the BBC?

... that after the crash of United Airlines Flight 297 in 1962, the Federal Aviation Administration created new regulations that required airplanes to better withstand bird strikes?

... that in Re A (conjoined twins) an English court permitted the separation of two conjoined twins knowing that one would die?

... that although Elizabeth Richards Tilton (pictured) was a central figure in a six-month-long trial, she was never allowed to speak in court?

... that under modern principles of vicarious liability in English law, employers are answerable for the intentional wrongdoings of their employees?

... that although John Fortescue listed ten Inns of Chancery, only nine are known?

... that oppositionist delegates to the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971 were among the first to be arrested when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

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 many international law experts and states doubt that extended occupations, such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine, can ever be legal?
... that Fort Hampton was constructed by the United States Army to warn Americans to leave and keep them from illegally settling in Chickasaw territory?
... that according to Ruth Marcus, the facts of Michael H. v. Gerald D. "more closely resembled a soap opera synopsis than a typical Supreme Court case"?
... that the BK inequality was used to identify implausibly lucky Florida Lottery winners, whose involvement in illegal activities was later confirmed by investigations?
... that a guerrilla garden established atop an abandoned railroad in Long Island City became legally recognized by the MTA?
... that legal activist Carrie Campbell Severino, who co-authored a book about Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, was once a law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas?

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General images

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

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