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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 twenty-four day march lasted from 12th March to 5th 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 an 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

Hubert Walter (c. 1160 – 13 July 1205) was an influential royal adviser in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in the positions of Chief Justiciar of England, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor. As chancellor, Walter began the keeping of the Charter Roll, a record of all charters issued by the chancery. Walter was not noted for his holiness in life or learning, but historians have judged him one of the most outstanding government ministers in English history.

Walter owed his early advancement to his uncle Ranulf de Glanvill, who helped him become a clerk of the Exchequer. Walter served King Henry II of England in many ways, not just in financial administration, but also including diplomatic and judicial efforts. After an unsuccessful candidacy to the see of York, Walter was elected Bishop of Salisbury shortly after the accession of Henry's son Richard I. (Full article...)

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Selected statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, and regulations issued by government agencies. (Full article...)

Hours of Service (HOS) regulations are issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and govern the working hours of anyone operating a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in the United States. These regulations apply to truck drivers, commercial and intercity bus drivers, and school bus drivers who operate CMVs. These rules limit the number of daily and weekly hours spent driving and working, and regulate the minimum amount of time drivers must spend resting between driving shifts. For intrastate commerce, the respective state's regulations apply.

The HOS's main purpose is to prevent accidents caused by driver fatigue. This is accomplished by limiting the number of driving hours per day, and the number of driving and working hours per week. Fatigue is also prevented by keeping drivers on a 21- to 24-hour schedule, maintaining a natural sleep/wake cycle (or circadian rhythm). Drivers are required to take a daily minimum period of rest, and are allowed longer "weekend" rest periods to combat cumulative fatigue effects that accrue on a weekly basis. (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 1Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States as of October 2020
Image 2The Langdell Library of Harvard Law School
Image 3The Constitution of India
Image 4Legal systems of the world
Image 5Statue of Lady Justice holding scales
Image 6Jeremy Bentham's writings influenced law for generations.
Image 7Painting of a jury deliberating
Image 8Emperor Justinian I (527–565) of the Byzantine Empire who ordered the codification of Corpus Juris Civilis.
Image 9Signing of the Magna Carta
Image 10Jawaharlal Nehru at the Allahabad High Court
Image 11Chief Justice John Marshall (1755 – 1835), an American statesman and jurist who greatly influenced constitutional law'
Image 12King Hammurabi receiving the code of laws from the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash
Image 13The first Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
Image 14The defendants sitting in the dock during the Nuremberg Trials
Image 15A courtroom in Tokyo, Japan

Selected case

Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is 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 according to one legal scholar, "no intelligent lawyer could well practice without" the books of Joseph Kinnicutt Angell?
... that New Zealand activist Pania Newton gave up a legal career to become an activist and spokesperson for the preservation of her ancestral lands at Ihumātao?
... that a guerrilla garden established atop an abandoned railroad in Long Island City became legally recognized by the MTA?
... that after a legal tussle, a mural commemorating Halim Dener was declared to be an artwork?
... that the owners and residents of the Alwyn Court argued over the legal definition of a window in 1985?
... that a 1999 legal case guaranteed the right of transgender people in England and Wales to access gender reassignment surgery?

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General images

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

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