Talk:Legality

Proposed Merge
The articles Ex_post_facto_law, Nulla_poena_sine_lege and Nullum_crimen%2C_nulla_poena_sine_praevia_lege_poenali essentially cover the same area. It is proposed to merge them into a new article on the principle of legality. They are all about this topic but don't quite yet know it. Caveat lector 19:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC) I hate to add an unsigned comment -- notably because I barely know what I am doing -- but I would be against the merge of Nulla_poena_sine_lege into Legality. I came here via United States v. Hudson and Goodwin, and I found the article very substantial when viewed through the paradigm of a Supreme Court decision that defined that particular concept. I probably will never know what comes of this, but, for this reason, I hope that the merge does not take. (Not unsigned -- got an account to show how serious I am.) --Dramatic fool 02:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No one seems to be interested in this one... I've decided to remove Ex_post_facto_law from the proposed merge, as the topic is slightly different and the article isn't very good anyway... Caveat lector 18:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Another similar page to merge Lex retro non agit. Caveat lector 19:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * In fairness I didn't suggest we delete any of the articles. The two articles to be merged are merely different variations of the same latin phrase. Caveat lector 21:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am in favor of the proposed merge, if for nothing else than to give historical depth to the idea of legality. --Tkessler45 10:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed merge. From a purely objective viewpoint it is more useful to link together smaller concepts than to try to hang them all under the one umbrella. I am also not convinced that it is appropriate to have this under "legality". Nullum crimen sine lege is a principle resident in many legal systems, but not in all. To define it as a prerequisite for legality or to even allow for that interpretation to arise will in fact taint a presentation of the facts with a Western jurisprudential bias. --Anonymous user, United Kingdom, 29th October 2006

I like the idea of having a separate article so it doesn't get lost in a big one, potentially making it hard to find. --Aaronjhill 8th January 2009

I disagree with the proposed merge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Celenamurdock (talk • contribs) 03:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Difference with ligitimacy
Often I read the the words legality and legitimacy as synonims. But there is a big difference, legality is about the lawfulness of a rule. Legitimacy has to do with justification and being just and fair. Could a good legal sholar explain this properly? Aixroot (talk) 13:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Practical vs Conceptual Law
This may be a slightly tangential discussion to the definition of legality, but there is something to be said for the difference between what amounts to both practical legality and conceptual legality. This distinction is very important because despite claims of legality/illegality based on statutes, bills, and other written forms of law, people do get away with "breaking the law" not by just evading it but by finding loopholes in it. This does an injustice to the credibility we give what we call “law”. For instance, OJ Simpson was released on a technicality that did not address whether or not he actually committed the crime. The same has happened for countless other cases in efforts to preserve one's rights (illegally obtained evidence, etc). Additionally, this has occurred in the international realm, with heads of state "getting away with" breaking what has been described as "international law". Regardless of the specifics of each case, what occurs is the person who did commit the crime is set free and is not recognized as being a criminal by the law, even though the law states that that person's actions are criminal.

This sort of occurrence, regardless of its form, begs for a distinction between practical and conceptual law. Conceptually, OJ Simpson is guilty of killing his Ex-wife, but practically speaking he is not guilty. He has not committed an illegal act that is recognized by the enforcing powers of the law. Therefore, in all practical senses his actions were not illegal. This is not to say in a conceptual sense he hasn't performed an illegal act, but it does outline the lack of credibility given to the idea of law as applied to him, or in another sense, the practicality of law in his case. These statements are at odds with how many have defined illegality and how many would like illegality to mean, since they prefer to state "he got away with an illegal action". However, this statement is conceptual in nature and does not address the practicality of the situation. Additionally it overlooks the applicability of law by leaving the instance as just one's fortune to have evaded the consequences of breaking the law. Conceptually it is very easy to label OJ Simpson as a murderer, but that does nothing to the actuality of the situation, which is that he performed an illegal action but is not guilty of that action. His not being guilty in this sense leaves the idea of the illegality of his actions up in the air. To an extreme, if nobody faces consequence for an action that's deemed illegal, what is the point of labeling an action as illegal in the first place? This argument and the distinction it notes boils down to whether or not we want to keep the idea of legality in the conceptual realm, or have some practical credibility applied to it. Being in favor of the application of this definition is beneficial because otherwise claims of legality and illegality are no different than claims of morality and immorality.

The current notion is that there is law, and there is subsequent law enforcement. However, with law preceding enforcement there is no given credibility to the practicality of law. The practicality, it seems, hangs in the balance, waiting for enforcement to give it any validity. This occurs with international war crimes and the whole concept of international law. Without the ability to enforce law, the credible practicality of the law hangs in the balance. Instead of law being a rule that one realizes disobedience of will bring about consequence, it becomes a choice based on one's motivations and adherence to one's internal morality. If all laws were seen as this, then there would be no difference between law and morality. Therefore, I in order to have practical law in the sense of having a widespread credibility applied to its applicability, one must have enforcing ability for law.

Is "law" just a written concept upon which we apply logical reasoning to bring about consequence for an opposing action, or is it a rule that commands obedience prior to any applied enforcement? For all practical purposes, law does command obedience, otherwise it would not be projected as a law. Hence, it is not without reason to claim that such a command implies the means to enforce the law are present and active. This then implies that law itself, or at least the practical sense of law, requires the means of enforcing it to be present in order to distinguish it from the conceptual realm and subsequently demand adherence to it by the subjects upon which it applies.


 * The above unsigned comment seems to have been made by User:Tkessler45 in 2006
 * Mahitgar (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

concept of " Legality " needs a separate article ? or move back to Legality
Season's greetings to all who have previously worked on this article and participated in above discussion. Since I am working on article on legal Legitimacy in my sandbox; while searching term Legality I came across this article.

While dealing with legal theory related article, many places there is simillarity in nomenclature but practically those headings deal with different concepts altogether. If we refer to the definitions and concept of Legality easyily available on google and above discussions over the years on this talk page by 82.41.201.64, User:Aixroot, User:Tkessler45 primarily they seem to be of the openion that concept of legality is different than that of content and the lead of this article named as Principle of legality.

The heading legality seems have been diverted by User:Blue-Haired Lawyer by citing reason redirect: to reflect the current lead so effectivelly agreeing that the present article does not give justice to pure concept of the legality and hence I belive concept of legality is likely to deserve an indipendant article. If at all we have to cover concept of legality in this article itself then Legality is a broader term so article name should be legality after covering concept of legality then we go over to principle of legality.

But if we look at comments of User:Aixroot, User:Tkessler45 I suppose we may have enough content to have an indipendant article about Legality. I will try to begin with deffinitions and primary info on legality in section below. Comments are welcome. Mahitgar (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yesterday I studied and worked a little on Legality. Since word Legality has wider scope it would be wise to redirect the article from Principle of legality to its former position Legality. I have created enough lead info for the article related to legality on the talk page which can be incorporated and then present lead about Principle of legality can be a section in the article.

I will prefer admin support in redirect the article from Principle of legality to its former position Legality so that history of the article can be retained properly.

Mahitgar (talk) 03:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Legality
Legality can be defined as an act, agreement, or contract is constistent to the law or state of being lawfull or unlawfull, in a given jurisdiction.

According to merriam-webster dictionary definition of Legality is 1 : attachment to or observance of law. 2 : the quality or state of being legal Businessdictionary.com and thelawdictionary.org definition explains concept of attachment to law as ''Implied warranty that an act, agreement, or contract strictly adheres to the statutes of a particular jurisdiction. For example, in insurance contracts it is assumed that all risks covered under the policy are legal ventures. The second definition cited by Businessdictionary.com  Legal principle that an accused may not be prosecuted for an act that is not declared a crime in that jurisdiction.'' is actually about Principle of legality which is part of over all concept of legality.

Related concepts
Rule of law provides for availability of rules, laws and legal mechanism to implement them. Principle of legality checks for availability and quality of the laws. Legality checks for if certain behaviour is according to law or not. concept of Legitimacy of law looks for fairness or acceptability of fairness of process of implementation of law. quality of being legal and observance to the law may pertain to lawfullness, i.e. being consistent to the law or it may get discussed in principle of legality or may be discussed as legal legitimacy.

Legality of Purpose
In contract law, legality of purpose is required of every enforceable contract. One can not validate or enforce a contract to do activity with unlawful purpose. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/example/%5Bfield_short_title-raw%5D_26 

Constitutional legality

 * http://www.amazon.com/Legality-Scott-J-Shapiro/dp/0674725786
 * https://books.google.co.in/books?id=4w9X-MTgaSEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=legality&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fMDDVKiMEcTKmwWsqYLQCQ&ved=0CCUQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q=legality&f=false

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Merge
Should legal status be merged here? Or is it a distinct concept? PhotographyEdits (talk) 17:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Principle of legality in French criminal law which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)