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Portal:Law

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The Law Portal

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

Law is a set of rules that are created and enforced by governmental or societal 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; 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...)

Selected article

A wide red building, with numerous pillars and archways, stands in the middle of some gardens. A road runs just in front of the court.

India's unitary judicial system is made up of the Supreme Court of India at the national level, for the entire country and the 24 High Courts at the State level. These courts have jurisdiction over a state, a union territory or a group of states and union territories. Below the High Courts are a hierarchy of subordinate courts such as the civil courts, family courts, criminal courts and various other district courts. High Courts are instituted as constitutional courts under Part VI, Chapter V, Article 214 of the Indian Constitution.

The High Courts are the principal civil courts of original jurisdiction in the state along with District Courts which are subordinate to the High courts. However, High courts exercise their original civil and criminal jurisdiction only if the courts subordinate to the High court in the state are not competent (not authorized by law) to try such matters for lack of pecuniary, territorial jurisdiction. High courts may also enjoy original jurisdiction in certain matters if so designated specifically in a state or Federal law. e.g.: Company law cases are instituted only in a High court.

Selected biography

Painting of Cesare Beccaria

Cesare Beccaria Bonesana, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio (Italian: [ˈtʃeːzare bekkaˈriːa, ˈtʃɛː-]; 15 March 1738 – 28 November 1794) was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist, and politician. He is well remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the classical school of criminology. Beccaria is considered the father of modern criminal law and the father of criminal justice.

According to John Bessler, Beccaria's works had a profound influence on the Founding Fathers of the United States. (Full article...)

Selected statute

A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also 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. They are also distinguished from secondary legislation, or regulations, that are issued by an executive body under authority granted by a statute. Depending on the legal system, a statute may also be referred to as an "act". (Full article...)


A filer warning of, among other things, "mental hygiene"

The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-830) was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. Initially bipartisan and uncontroversial, it became the focus of a major political dispute after radical anti-communist activists nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist plot to hospitalize and brainwash Americans. Campaigners asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States.

The legislation in its original form was sponsored by the Democratic Party, but after it ran into opposition, it was rescued by the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Under Goldwater's sponsorship, a version of the legislation without the commitment provisions that were the target of intense opposition from a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups was passed by the United States Senate. The controversy still plays a prominent role in the Church of Scientology's account of its campaign against psychiatry.

The Act succeeded in its initial aim of establishing a mental health care system for Alaska, funded by income from lands allocated to a mental health trust. However, during the 1970s and early 1980s, Alaskan politicians systematically stripped the trust of its lands, transferring the most valuable land to private individuals and state agencies. The asset stripping was eventually ruled to be illegal following several years of litigation, and a reconstituted mental health trust was established in the mid-1980s. (Full article...)

Did you know...

Black and white photograph of a seated woman in traditional Indian dress.

  • ... that the non-payment of debts is the archetype for the seventeen other Hindu titles of law, including that of sexual crimes against women?

Selected images

Selected case

Case 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. The term is often used interchangeably with common law. (Full article...)


An illustration of two people fighting in a pen and surrounded by a large crowd

Ashford v Thornton (1818) 106 ER 149 is an English criminal case in the Court of King's Bench which upheld the right of the defendant to trial by battle on a private appeal from an acquittal for murder.

In 1817, Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford. Thornton had met Ashford at a dance and had walked with her from the event. The next morning, she was found drowned in a pit with little evidence of violence. Public opinion was heavily against Thornton, but the jury quickly acquitted him of both murder and rape.

Mary's brother William Ashford launched an appeal, and Thornton was rearrested. Thornton claimed the right to trial by battle, a medieval usage that had never been abolished by Parliament. Ashford argued that the evidence against Thornton was overwhelming and that he was thus ineligible to wage battle.

The court decided that the evidence against Thornton was not overwhelming, and that therefore trial by battle was a permissible option under law. William Ashford declined the offer of battle, however, and Thornton was freed from custody in April 1818. Appeals such as Ashford's were abolished by statute in 1819, and with them the right to trial by battle. (Full article...)

More Did you know (auto-generated)

14 October 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis
Two cargo ships, the Singapore-flagged container ship GFS Pride and the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged dry bulk carrier Cape Dao, sink after both are attacked by projectiles near the Strait of Hormuz while trying to navigate through what Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called an "illegal and dangerous route." At least one crew member is killed in the attacks. (The Guardian) (Reuters)
14 October 2026 – Flamingo Revolution
Rioters attack government buildings, banks, businesses and other sites as anti-government protests erupt in Tirana, Albania. At least 23 police officers and six others are injured during the unrest, while 35 people are detained. President Bajram Begaj condemns the violence and appeals for calm across the nation. (AP)
13 October 2026 – LGBTQ rights in Hungary
The Hungarian National Assembly passes an amendment repealing most provisions of the anti-LGBTQ child protection law that was previously passed during former prime minister Viktor Orbán's tenure in 2021. (DW)
13 October 2026 – Murder of Tupac Shakur
The Clark County District Court in Nevada, United States, sentences former Crips gang leader Duane "Keffe D" Davis to a minimum of 40 years in prison for orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. (AFP via France 24) (DW)
13 October 2026 – Scam centers in Myanmar
A Chinese court sentences three triad members to death for crimes linked to scam centers in Kokang, Myanmar, including fraud, drug trafficking, illegal gambling, prostitution, and the murders of two Chinese citizens. (AFP via CBS News)

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