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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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The Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Duties are sections of the Constitution of India that prescribe the fundamental obligations of the states to its citizens and the duties and the rights of the citizens to the State. These sections are considered vital elements of the constitution, which was developed between 1949 by the Constituent Assembly of India.

The Fundamental Rights are defined in Part III of the Indian Constitution from article 12 to 35 and applied irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, sex, gender, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to specific restrictions. The Directive Principles of State Policy are guidelines for the framing of laws by the government. These provisions, set out in Part IV of the Constitution, are not enforceable by the courts, but the principles on which they are based are fundamental guidelines for governance that the State is expected to apply in framing any policies and passing of laws. ( Full article...)

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Sir Matthew Hale SL (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown. ( Full article...)

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

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that law enforcement in the United States must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements cannot be used as evidence at their trial. Specifically, the Court held that under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot use a person's statements made in response to an interrogation while in police custody as evidence at the person's criminal trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with a lawyer before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them before answering questions.

Miranda was viewed by many as a radical change in American criminal law, since the Fifth Amendment was traditionally understood only to protect Americans against formal types of compulsion to confess, such as threats of contempt of court. It has had a significant impact on law enforcement in the United States, by making what became known as the Miranda warning part of routine police procedure to ensure that suspects were informed of their rights, which would become known as "Miranda rights". The concept of "Miranda warnings" quickly caught on across American law enforcement agencies, who came to call the practice "Mirandizing".

Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court decision Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010), criminal suspects who are aware of their right to silence and to an attorney but choose not to "unambiguously" invoke them, may find any subsequent voluntary statements treated as an implied waiver of their rights, and used as or as part of evidence. At least one scholar has argued that Thompkins "fully undermined" Miranda. ( Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that a 1982 court case established that video games may qualify for multiple types of U.S. copyright protection?
... that thanks to the advocate general's opinion, one is likely to know the outcome of a court case before the European Court of Justice before it even starts drafting the ruling?
... that the presence of illegal colleges in Saumlaki was compared to "mushrooms growing in the rainy season"?
... that Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra laid the foundation for the Reglamento Federal de Toxicomanias, which legalized psychoactive substances in Mexico in 1940?
... that the pseudonymous manga artist Junichi Yamakawa never disclosed to his editor his legal name, address, or contact information?
... that in mediaeval England an area of special legal jurisdiction extended around the royal court and moved with it?

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General images

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

Image 1 Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 2The 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 3Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)
Image 4 Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)
Image 5 Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 6King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 7Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 8The 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 9 Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (from Judiciary)
Image 10Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)
Image 11 Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 12 Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 13 Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 14 Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)

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