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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 Salt march, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March, and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India, led by Mahatma Gandhi. The 24-day march lasted from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Another reason for this march was that the Civil Disobedience Movement needed a strong inauguration that would inspire more people to follow Gandhi's example. Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march spanned 387 kilometres (240 mi), from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time (now in the state of Gujarat). Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the British Raj salt laws at 8:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large-scale acts of civil disobedience against the salt laws by millions of Indians.

After making the salt by evaporation at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 40 km (25 mi) south of Dandi. However, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost a year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference. Although over 60,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha, the British did not make immediate major concessions. (Full article...)

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Selected biography

Sherman "Shay" Minton (October 20, 1890 – April 9, 1965) was an American politician and jurist who served as a U.S. senator from Indiana and later became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; he was a member of the Democratic Party.

After attending college and law school, Minton served as a captain in World War I, following which he launched a legal and political career. In 1930, after multiple failed election attempts, and serving as a regional leader in the American Legion, he became a utility commissioner under the administration of Paul V. McNutt, Governor of Indiana. Four years later, Minton was elected to the United States Senate. During the campaign, he defended New Deal legislation in a series of addresses in which he suggested it was not necessary to uphold the United States Constitution during the Great Depression. Minton's campaign was denounced by his political opponents, and he received more widespread criticism for an address that became known as the "You Cannot Eat the Constitution" speech. As part of the New Deal Coalition, Minton championed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's unsuccessful court packing plans in the Senate and became one of his top Senate allies.

After Minton failed in his 1940 Senate reelection bid, Roosevelt appointed him as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. After Roosevelt's death, President Harry S. Truman, who had developed a close friendship with Minton during their time together in the Senate, nominated him to the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate on October 4, 1949, by a vote of 48 to 16, 15 Republicans and one Democrat (Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia) voting against him. He served on the Supreme Court for seven years. An advocate of judicial restraint, Minton was a regular supporter of the majority opinions during his early years on the Court; he became a regular dissenter after President Dwight Eisenhower's appointees altered the court's composition. In 1956, poor health forced Minton to retire, after which he traveled and lectured until his death in 1965. As of 2023, he is the last member of the United States Congress to be named to the Supreme Court. (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 Statute of Uses (27 Hen. 8. c. 10 — enacted in 1536) was an Act of the Parliament of England that restricted the application of uses in English property law. The Statute ended the practice of creating uses in real property by changing the purely equitable title of beneficiaries of a use into absolute ownership with the right of seisin (possession).

The Statute was conceived by Henry VIII of England as a way to rectify his financial problems by simplifying the law of uses, which moved land outside the royal tax revenue (i.e., through royal fees called feudal incidents), traditionally imposed through seisin. At the time, land could not be passed by a will, and when it devolved to the heir upon death was subject to taxes. Hence, the practice evolved of landowners creating a use of the land to enable it to pass to someone other than their legal heir upon their death, or simply to try and reduce the incidence of taxation. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that other than the Second World War, there has never been a declaration of war by Canada?

... that, in the cases of Klayman v. Obama and ACLU v. Clapper, US district courts issued conflicting rulings on the constitutionality of bulk data collection by the US government?

... that part of the Occupiers' Liability Act 1984, a piece of United Kingdom legislation on tort law, is intended to permit educational and recreational use of land?

... that banking regulations in Russia include significant specifics, such as mandatory deposits placed in special reserve accounts at the Russian Central Bank?

... that the 501(h) election allows many U.S. non-profit organizations to engage in unlimited lobbying as long as they do it cheaply?

... that the Autism Act 2009 is the first ever disability-specific legislation to be passed in the United Kingdom?

... that in 2011, Nitehawk Cinema successfully lobbied to overturn a Prohibition-era liquor law that prevented movie theaters in New York from serving alcohol?

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Selected images

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

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...)

Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart [1992] UKHL 3, is a landmark decision of the House of Lords on the use of legislative history in statutory interpretation. The court established the principle that when primary legislation is ambiguous then, in certain circumstances, the court may refer to statements made in the House of Commons or House of Lords in an attempt to interpret the meaning of the legislation. Before this ruling, such an action would have been seen as a breach of parliamentary privilege.

John Hart and nine others were teachers at Malvern College who benefited from a "concessionary fee" scheme that allowed their children to be educated at the college for one-fifth of the normal fees. The Inland Revenue attempted to tax this benefit based on the Finance Act 1976. There was a dispute over the correct interpretation of the Act. The Special Commissioners charged with assessing the tax found in favour of Hart, but both the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal of England and Wales found in favour of the Inland Revenue. The case then went to the House of Lords, which, making use of statements in Parliament as recorded in Hansard, found in favour of Hart. Lord Mackay, dissenting, argued that Hansard should not be considered admissible evidence because of the time and expense involved in a lawyer having to look up every debate and discussion on a particular statute when giving legal advice or preparing a case. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Russian money, known as qiang tie by locals, was used as legal currency in some regions of China for decades?
... 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 a 1982 court case established that video games may qualify for multiple types of U.S. copyright protection?
... that Western Australia was the second Australian state to legalise voluntary assisted dying?
... that after Joseph S. Bartley was sentenced to twenty years in prison for embezzlement, he tried to have himself declared legally dead?
... that red-boxing by American politicians is used to coordinate with Super PACs, an activity that the Campaign Legal Center called the "primary mechanism for corruption of federal campaigns in 2022"?

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

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