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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 Saxbe fix (/ˈsæksbiː/ SAKS-bee), or salary rollback, is a mechanism by which the president of the United States, in appointing a current or former member of the United States Congress whose elected term has not yet expired, can avoid the restriction of the United States Constitution's Ineligibility Clause. That clause prohibits the president from appointing a current or former member of Congress to a civil office position that was created, or to a civil office position for which the pay or benefits (collectively, "emoluments") were increased, during the term for which that member was elected until the term has expired. The rollback, first implemented by an Act of Congress in 1909, reverts the emoluments of the office to the amount they were when that member began his or her elected term.

To prevent ethical conflicts, James Madison proposed language at the Constitutional Convention that was adopted as the Ineligibility Clause after debate and modification by other Founding Fathers. Historically, a number of approaches have been taken to circumvent or adhere to the restrictions; these have included choosing another nominee, allowing the desired nominee's elected term of office to expire, ignoring the clause entirely, or reducing the offending emoluments to the level prior to when the nominee took office. Although Congress passed the mechanism reducing emoluments in 1909, the procedure was named "Saxbe fix" after Senator William Saxbe, who was confirmed as attorney general in 1973 after Congress reduced the office's salary to the level it had been before Saxbe's term commenced. The Saxbe fix has subsequently become relevant as a successful—though not universally accepted—solution for appointments by presidents of both parties of sitting members of the United States Congress to the United States Cabinet. Members of Congress have been appointed to federal judgeships without any fix being enacted; court challenges to such appointments have failed. (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 Trustee Act 2000 (c. 29) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that regulates the duties of trustees in English trust law. Reform in these areas had been advised as early as 1982, and finally came about through the Trustee Bill 2000, based on the Law Commission's 1999 report "Trustees' Powers and Duties", which was introduced to the House of Lords in January 2000. The bill received the Royal Assent on 23 November 2000 and came into force on 1 February 2001 through the Trustee Act 2000 (Commencement) Order 2001, a Statutory Instrument, with the Act having effect over England and Wales.

The Act covers five areas of trust law: the duty of care imposed upon trustees, trustees' power of investment, the power to appoint nominees and agents, the power to acquire land, and the power to receive remuneration for work done as a trustee. It sets a new duty of care, both objective and standard, massively extends the trustees' power of investment and limits the trustees' liability for the actions of agents, also providing for their remuneration for work done in the course of the trust. (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 2The Constitution of India
Image 3Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States as of October 2020
Image 4A courtroom in Tokyo, Japan
Image 5Jawaharlal Nehru at the Allahabad High Court
Image 6Legal systems of the world
Image 7Signing of the Magna Carta
Image 8The defendants sitting in the dock during the Nuremberg Trials
Image 9Jeremy Bentham's writings influenced law for generations.
Image 10Statue of Lady Justice holding scales
Image 11The Langdell Library of Harvard Law School
Image 12Emperor Justinian I (527–565) of the Byzantine Empire who ordered the codification of Corpus Juris Civilis.
Image 13King Hammurabi receiving the code of laws from the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash
Image 14The first Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
Image 15Chief Justice John Marshall (1755 – 1835), an American statesman and jurist who greatly influenced constitutional law'

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...)

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 a 1982 court case established that video games may qualify for multiple types of U.S. copyright protection?
... that Guajajara environmental activist and land defender Paulo Paulino Guajajara, who worked to stop the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, was killed by a group of illegal loggers?
... that in a court case, William Gregson was awarded £30 for every enslaved person that his crew had murdered in the Zong massacre?
... that under early English common law a person became legally dead when they entered a religious order?
... that Hirsch Sommerhausen worked as a court translator in a dozen languages?
... that a guerrilla garden established atop an abandoned railroad in Long Island City became legally recognized by the MTA?

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General images

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

Image 1Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (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 3Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 4Gratian (from Judiciary)
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 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 9Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)
Image 10Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 11Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 12Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)
Image 13Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 14King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)

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