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The Law Portal

Lady Justice, often used as a personification of the law, holding a sword in one scales in the other.

Law is a system of rules created and enforced through 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 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 serves as a mediator of relations between people.

Legal systems vary between countries, 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 make binding case law through precedent, although on occasion this may be overturned by a higher court or the legislature. Historically, religious law influenced secular matters, and is still used 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.

Law's scope can be divided into two domains. Public law concerns government and society, including constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law. Private law deals with legal disputes between individuals and/or organisations 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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To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352, although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces). His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the English monarchy's authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment. Although some convicts had their sentences modified and suffered a less ignominious end, over a period of several hundred years many men found guilty of high treason were subjected to the law's ultimate sanction. They included many English Catholic priests executed during the Elizabethan era, and several of the regicides involved in the 1649 execution of Charles I.

Although the Act of Parliament defining high treason remains on the United Kingdom's statute books, during a long period of 19th-century legal reform the sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering was changed to drawing, hanging until dead, and posthumous beheading and quartering, before being abolished in England in 1870. The death penalty for treason was abolished in 1998. (Full article...)

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Kendrick Lichty Moxon (commonly known as Kendrick Moxon) is an American Scientology official and an attorney with the law firm Moxon & Kobrin. He practices in Los Angeles, California, and is a lead counsel for the Church of Scientology. Moxon received a B.A. from American University in 1972, and a J.D. degree from George Mason University in 1981. He was admitted to the Washington, D.C. bar association in 1984, and the State Bar of California in 1987. Moxon's early work for the Church of Scientology involved legal affairs, and he also held the title of "reverend". He worked out of the Scientology intelligence agency known as the Guardian's Office (GO), and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator after the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into criminal activities by Scientology operatives called "Operation Snow White". An evidence stipulation in the case signed by both parties stated he had provided false handwriting samples to the FBI; Moxon has since said that he did not "knowingly supply" false handwriting samples.

The bulk of Moxon's legal work is Scientology-related. He has served as Commissioner of the Scientology-affiliated organization Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). He represented the Church of Scientology in 1988 in a billion-dollar class action lawsuit against the organization by former Scientologists which was dismissed in Los Angeles Superior Court. In 1990 Moxon represented the organization in a suit against the Internal Revenue Service in an attempt to gain access to information about Scientology held by the IRS. He assisted 50 Scientologists in filing separate lawsuits against the organization Cult Awareness Network (CAN), which led to the bankruptcy of the organization. He represented the plaintiff in the Jason Scott case against CAN and cult deprogrammer Rick Ross. (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...)

The Arbitration Act 1979 (c.42) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed arbitration law in England and Wales. Prior to 1979, arbitration law was based on the Arbitration Act 1950, which allowed use of the "Case Stated" procedure and other methods of judicial intervention, which marked English arbitration law as significantly different from that of other jurisdictions. The prior law significantly increased the cost and time required for arbitration, which made England an unpopular jurisdiction to conduct such negotiations in. As a result, while London maintained its traditional position as a centre for arbitration in insurance, admiralty and commodities trading, it failed to attract more modern forms of trade. Following pressure from industry groups, the Lord Chancellor introduced the Arbitration Bill into Parliament, having it passed hours before the dissolution of James Callaghan's government. It was given the Royal Assent on 4 April 1979, and commenced working on 1 August 1979.

The Act completely abolished the "Case Stated" procedure and other forms of judicial interference, replacing it with a limited system of appeal to the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal of England and Wales; it also allowed for exclusion agreements limiting the rights of parties to arbitration to appeal to the courts, and gave arbitrators the ability to enforce interlocutory orders. Academics met the Act with a mixed response; while some praised it for bringing English law more into line with that of other nations, others criticised the wording used as unnecessarily complex and hazy. The Act did, in the eyes of some commentators, lead to a shift in judicial policy away from legal certainty and towards a system focused on speed and finality. Having been repealed in its entirety by Section 107(2) of the Arbitration Act 1996, the Act is no longer in force. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that The Urban Lawyer is the largest circulating government law journal in the world?

... that prior to the Recreational Charities Act 1958, the English courts refused to accept any charities involving recreational activities as valid?

... that, according to a US Supreme Court decision, the Fourth Amendment does not always apply to searches at the border?

... that their loss in Watson v British Boxing Board of Control forced the British Boxing Board of Control to move to Wales?

... that the professors of the law school of Beirut drafted parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis, a fundamental work in Roman jurisprudence?

... that John Verney became a Member of Parliament to gain contacts to help him in his career as a barrister?

... that the Bartley-Fox Law mandated a one-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of illegally carrying a firearm in Massachusetts?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

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 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...)

Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy, 162 U.S. 283 (1896), was the first litigation of aboriginal title in the United States by a tribal plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States since Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831). It was the first such litigation by an indigenous plaintiff since Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857) and its companion case of New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble (1858). The New York courts held that the 1788 Phelps and Gorham Purchase did not violate the Nonintercourse Act, one of the provisions of which prohibits purchases of Indian lands without the approval of the federal government, and that (even if it did) the Seneca Nation of New York was barred by the state statute of limitations from challenging the transfer of title. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the merits of lower court ruling because of the adequate and independent state grounds doctrine.

According to O'Toole and Tureen, "Christy is an important case in that it revived the concept that states had special powers to deal with Indian tribes within their borders."

Although the case has not been formally overruled, two Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s and 1980s have undone its effect by ruling that there is federal subject-matter jurisdiction for a federal common law cause of action for recovering possession based on the common-law doctrine of aboriginal title. Moreover, the New York courts' interpretation of the Nonintercourse Act is no longer good law. Modern federal courts hold that only Congress can ratify a conveyance of aboriginal title, and only with a clear statement, rather than implicitly. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the documentary Change the Subject is about lobbying efforts to replace the term "illegal aliens" with "undocumented immigrants" in the Library of Congress Subject Headings?
... that Sarah Chapone compares the legal situation of married women in 18th-century England to slavery in her legal treatise?
... that Abdallah Oumbadougou, the "godfather of all the present-day Tuareg musicians in Niger", distributed illegal cassette tapes of banned ishumar music while in exile from 1984 to 1995?
... that it was once illegal for civilians to pass U.S. military vehicles on Japan National Route 58?
... that the LGBT Centre Mongolia was legally registered in 2009 after being told more than ten times that its name did not suit "Mongolian traditions and customs"?
... that the owners and residents of the Alwyn Court argued over the legal definition of a window in 1985?

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General images

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

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

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