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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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Selected article

Marwa Ali El-Sherbini (Arabic: مروة على الشربيني), was an Egyptian woman and German resident who was killed in 2009 during an appeal hearing at a court of law in Dresden, Germany, when she was three months pregnant. She was stabbed by Alex Wiens, an ethnic German immigrant from Russia against whom she had testified in a criminal case for verbal abuse. El-Sherbini's husband, who was present at the hearing, tried to intervene. He too was repeatedly stabbed by Wiens and was then mistakenly shot and wounded by a police officer who was called to the court room. Wiens was arrested at the crime scene and subsequently tried for murder and attempted murder. He was found guilty of both charges; it was also found that Wiens's actions constituted a heinous crime, because they were committed in front of a child, against two people, in a court of law, and fulfilled the murder criterion of treacherousness, such as hatred against foreigners. Wiens was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The death of El-Sherbini immediately resulted in international reactions, with the most vocal responses coming from predominantly Muslim nations. The Egyptian public and media focused attention on the religious and racial hatred aspect of the killing, especially as the initial confrontation between the victim and perpetrator had happened because she wore an Islamic headscarf. In response to anti-German sentiments and public protests in Egypt and other countries, the German government issued a statement of condolence nine days after the incident. Wiens's trial for murder and attempted murder occurred under strict security measures and was observed by national and international media, diplomats and legal experts. (Full article...)

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Selected biography

Alfred Thompson Denning, Baron Denning, OM, PC, DL (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999), was an English barrister and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 when he was appointed to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, and transferred to the King's Bench Division in 1945. He was made a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1948 after less than five years in the High Court. He became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1957 and after five years in the House of Lords returned to the Court of Appeal as Master of the Rolls in 1962, a position he held for twenty years. In retirement he wrote several books and continued to offer opinions on the state of the common law through his writing and his position in the House of Lords.

Margaret Thatcher said that Denning was "probably the greatest English judge of modern times". One of Lord Denning's successors as Master of the Rolls, Lord Bingham, called him "the best known and best loved judge in our history". Denning's appellate work in the Court of Appeal did not concern criminal law. Mark Garnett and Richard Weight argue that Denning was a conservative Christian who "remained popular with morally conservative Britons who were dismayed at the postwar rise in crime and who, like him, believed that the duties of the individual were being forgotten in the clamour for rights. He had a more punitive than redemptive view of criminal justice, as a result of which he was a vocal supporter of corporal and capital punishment." However, he changed his stance on capital punishment in later life.

Denning became one of the highest profile judges in England in part because of his report on the Profumo affair. He was known for his bold judgments running counter to the law at the time. During his 38-year career as a judge, he made large changes to the common law, particularly while in the Court of Appeal, and although some of his decisions were overturned by the House of Lords several of them were confirmed by Parliament, which passed statutes in line with his judgments. Appreciated for his role as "the people's judge" and his support for the individual, Denning attracted attention for his occasionally flexible attitude to the common law principle of precedent. He commented controversially about the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. (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 Statute of Uses (27 Hen. 8. c. 10 — enacted in 1536) was an Act of the Parliament of England that restricted the application of uses in English property law. The Statute ended the practice of creating uses in real property by changing the purely equitable title of beneficiaries of a use into absolute ownership with the right of seisin (possession).

The Statute was conceived by Henry VIII of England as a way to rectify his financial problems by simplifying the law of uses, which moved land outside the royal tax revenue (i.e., through royal fees called feudal incidents), traditionally imposed through seisin. At the time, land could not be passed by a will, and when it devolved to the heir upon death was subject to taxes. Hence, the practice evolved of landowners creating a use of the land to enable it to pass to someone other than their legal heir upon their death, or simply to try and reduce the incidence of taxation. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law was named after its founder Sir Elihu Lauterpacht and his father Sir Hersch Lauterpacht?

... that Guido Jung was dismissed from the Royal Italian Army after the enactment of the Italian Racial Laws despite having served as Minister of Finance under Mussolini?

... that in the Bancoult litigation, the English courts and government first decided that the Chagossians could return home (pictured), then that they couldn't, then that they could, and then that they couldn't?

... that the tenor Alfred Vökt, who performed in the premiere of Henze's Il re cervo, had a Doctor of Law degree?

... that the General Alliance against Racism and for Respect for French and Christian Identity sued Le Figaro for defamation against Catholics?

... that martial law was declared in Russell County, Alabama in 1954 after the assassination of Attorney General candidate Albert Patterson?

... that the year and a day rule regarding homicide was abolished because of advances in medicine and forensic science?

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Selected images

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

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...)

Al-Kateb v Godwin, was a decision of the High Court of Australia, which ruled on 6 August 2004 that the indefinite detention of a stateless person was lawful. The case concerned Ahmed Al-Kateb, a Palestinian man born in Kuwait, who moved to Australia in 2000 and applied for a temporary protection visa. The Commonwealth Minister for Immigration's decision to refuse the application was upheld by the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Federal Court. In 2002, Al-Kateb declared that he wished to return to Kuwait or Gaza. However, since no country would accept Al-Kateb, he was declared stateless and detained under the policy of mandatory detention.

The two main issues considered by the High Court were whether the Migration Act 1958 (the legislation governing immigration to Australia) permitted a person in Al-Kateb's situation to be detained indefinitely, and if so, whether this was permissible under the Constitution of Australia. A majority of the court decided that the Act did allow indefinite detention, and that the Act was not unconstitutional.

The controversy surrounding the outcome of the case resulted in a review of the circumstances of twenty-four stateless people in immigration detention. Al-Kateb and 8 other stateless people were granted bridging visas in 2005 and while this meant they were released from detention, they were unable to work, study or obtain various government benefits. Al-Kateb was granted a permanent visa in October 2007. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that West Virginia lawyer Arthur G. Froe served as D.C. Recorder of Deeds under three presidents and was appointed by President Wilson as a draft board legal advisor during World War I?
... that Bumper Pool legally changed his name to Bumper when he was 16 because of his father's childhood love for bumper pool?
... that the pseudonymous manga artist Junichi Yamakawa never disclosed to his editor his legal name, address, or contact information?
... that the ballot summary for 2024 Ohio Issue 1 was a flashpoint for legal action?
... 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 in the 1951 court case Kuzych v White, on appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, five law lords of the British Judicial Committee ruled in favour of a Communist-led trade union?

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General images

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

Image 1Image of pages from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, an 11th-century book of canon law (from Canon law)
Image 2Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?" (from Jurisprudence)
Image 3"With law shall land be built", from the Code of Jutland (1241) above the Copenhagen Court House, Denmark (from Legal history)
Image 4The 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 5Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens (from Jurisprudence)
Image 6The 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 7Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legal scholar. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 8Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee (from Judiciary)
Image 9Mill believed law should create happiness. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 10Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607 (from Judiciary)
Image 11Gratian (from Judiciary)
Image 12King John of England signs the Magna Carta (from Legal history)
Image 13Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (from Jurisprudence)
Image 14Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century. (from Jurisprudence)
Image 15Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist. (from Jurisprudence)

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