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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 legislature, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or by judges' decisions, which form precedent in common law jurisdictions. An autocrat may exercise those functions within their realm. 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. Religious law is in use in some religious communities and states, and has historically influenced secular law.

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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A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (servientes ad legem), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France before the Norman Conquest, thus the Serjeants are said to be the oldest formally created order in England. The order rose during the 16th century as a small, elite group of lawyers who took much of the work in the central common law courts.

With the creation of Queen's Counsel or "Queen's Counsel Extraordinary" (King's Counsel during a male monarch's rule) during the reign of Elizabeth I, the order gradually began to decline, with each monarch opting to create more King's or Queen's Counsel. The Serjeants' exclusive jurisdictions were ended during the 19th century and, with the Judicature Act 1873 coming into force in 1875, it was felt that there was no need to have such figures, and no more were created. The last appointed was Nathaniel Lindley, later a Law Lord, who retired in 1905 and died in 1921. The number of Irish Serjeants-at-law was limited to three (originally one, later two). The last appointment was A. M. Sullivan in 1912; after his 1921 relocation to the English bar he remained "Serjeant Sullivan" as a courtesy title. (Full article...)

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Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon, PC (5 October 1732 – 4 April 1802), was a British politician and barrister, who served as Attorney General, Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice. Born to a country gentleman, he was initially educated in Hanmer before moving to Ruthin School aged 12. Rather than going to university he instead worked as a clerk to an attorney, joining the Middle Temple in 1750 and being called to the Bar in 1756. Initially almost unemployed due to the lack of education and contacts which a university education would have provided, his business increased thanks to his friendships with John Dunning, who, overwhelmed with cases, allowed Kenyon to work many, and Lord Thurlow who secured for him the Chief Justiceship of Chester in 1780. He was returned as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hindon the same year, serving repeatedly as Attorney General under William Pitt the Younger. He effectively sacrificed his political career in 1784 to challenge the ballot of Charles James Fox, and was rewarded with a baronetcy; from then on he did not speak in the House of Commons, despite remaining an MP.

On 27 March 1784, he was appointed Master of the Rolls, a job to which he dedicated himself once he ceased to act as an MP. He had previously practised in the Court of Chancery, and although unfamiliar with Roman law was highly efficient; Lord Eldon said "I am mistaken if, after I am gone, the Chancery Records do not prove that if I have decided more than any of my predecessors in the same period of time, Sir Lloyd Kenyon beat us all". On 9 June 1788, Kenyon succeeded Lord Mansfield as Lord Chief Justice, and was granted a barony. Although not rated as highly as his predecessor, his work "restored the simplicity and rigor of the common law". He remained Lord Chief Justice until his death in 1802. (Full article...)

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A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body; a law enacted by a legislature. Typically, statutes declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (otherwise known as common law) in that they are the expressed will of a legislative body, whether that be on the behalf of a country, state or province, county, municipality, or so on. Depending on the legal system, a statute may also be referred to as an "act." (Full article...)

House Bill 444 (abbreviated H.B. 444) was a 2009 bill of the Hawaii State Legislature, passed in April 2010 and vetoed by Governor of Hawaii Linda Lingle, that would have legalized civil unions for couples in the state of Hawaii. Its legislative process was accompanied by controversy over the bill's content and effects and rallies were held by supporters and opponents.

The bill passed the Hawaii House of Representatives in February 2009 in a form specific to same-sex couples, was passed in amended form including opposite-sex couples by the Hawaii Senate in May 2009, and was carried over in the 2010 session, where it passed the Senate again in January 2010 with a veto-proof majority. The bill moved back to the House but was indefinitely postponed by a voice vote initiated by House Speaker Calvin Say, requiring a vote of two-thirds of Representatives to be taken up again in 2010, and was considered dead. In April 2010, on the last day of the legislative session, the House suspended the rules on the Senate bill and passed it with a majority, sending the bill to Governor Linda Lingle, who vetoed it in July 2010.

Hawaii did not allow same-sex marriages or civil unions, but two unmarried people can register for a reciprocal beneficiary relationship, which provides some of the rights and benefits that come with marriage. The bill was written to become law on January 1, 2010, would allow all couples to obtain rights equal to those of married couples, and make Hawaii the only state in the Western United States to allow civil unions instead of domestic partnerships. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Franklin County Courthouse (pictured) incorporates the walls and columns left after Confederate forces burned the previous courthouse during the American Civil War?

... that a bipartisan commission was established by law in 2003 with the mandate to study prison rape in the United States?

... that T. Muthuswamy Iyer was the first Indian judge of the Madras High Court?

... that a grand jury found Arizona Territory's "Thieving Thirteenth" legislature exceeded a US$4,000 legal limitation for operating expenses by US$46,744.50?

... that English gynaecologist Margaret Puxon, who started studying law to prevent boredom while on maternity leave, eventually became a barrister?

... that the Stephen Downing case, also known as the Bakewell Tart murder, has been described as the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history?

... that John B. Creeden was a founder of both Boston College Law School and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service?

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Selected images

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

A photograph of a group of people holding placards with "saveROE.com" on them

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protected the right to have an abortion prior to the point of fetal viability. The decision struck down many State abortion laws, and it sparked an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

The case was brought by Norma McCorvey—under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas where abortion was only legal when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. However, it also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interest in protecting both women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe was among the most controversial in U.S. history. Roe was criticized by many in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that variations of the Latin legal maxim ius civile vigilantibus scriptum est have been used by American, European and Lesotho courts?
... that it will soon be illegal for government employees to gamble in the country of Georgia?
... that the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court case Department of State v. Muñoz decided that the fundamental right to marry does not give a U.S. citizen a right to challenge their spouse's visa denial?
... that a Bangladeshi government agency collected ৳6.5 billion (equivalent to US$150 million in 2023) from corruption suspects, but a court ruled it was illegal?
... that under early English common law a person became legally dead when they entered a religious order?
... that British outrage at the sentencing of a white Kenyan settler to just two years' imprisonment for the 1923 killing of a black employee eventually led to the replacement of the colony's legal code?

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General images

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

Image 1King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 2Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 3Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 4Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 5Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 6Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (from Judiciary)
Image 7Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)
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"With law shall land be built", from the Code of Jutland (1241) above the Copenhagen Court House, Denmark (from Legal history)
Image 10Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)
Image 11Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 12Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)
Image 13The 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 14Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 15Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)

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