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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

In English law, secret trusts are a class of trust defined as an arrangement between a testator and a trustee, made to come into force after death, that aims to benefit a person without having been written in a formal will. The property is given to the trustee in the will, and he would then be expected to pass it on to the real beneficiary. For these to be valid, the person seeking to enforce the trust must prove that the testator intended to form a trust, that this intention was communicated to the trustee, and that the trustee accepted his office. There are two types of secret trust — fully secret and half-secret. A fully secret trust is one with no mention in the will whatsoever. In the case of a half-secret trust, the face of the will names the trustee as trustee, but does not give the trust's terms, including the beneficiary. The most important difference lies in communication of the trust: the terms of a half-secret trust must be communicated to the trustee before the execution of the will, whereas in the case of a fully secret trust the terms may be communicated after the execution of the will, as long as this is before the testator's death.

Secret trusts do not comply with the formality requirements (such as witnessing) laid down in the Wills Act 1837. Despite this, the courts have chosen to uphold them as valid. Although various justifications have been given for this, they are generally categorised as either based on preventing fraud, or as regarding secret trusts as outside (dehors) the operation of the Wills Act. The first is considered the traditional approach – if the courts do not recognise secret trusts, the trustee given the property in the will would be able to keep it for himself, committing fraud. The fraud theory utilises the equitable maxim that "equity will not allow a statute to be used as a cloak for fraud". A more modern view is that secret trusts exist outside the will altogether, and thus do not have to comply with it. Accepting this theory would undermine the operation of the Wills Act, since the Wills Act is designed to cover all testamentary dispositions. To avoid this problem, one approach has been to reclassify the secret trust as inter vivos ("between the living") but this creates other problems. There have also been attempts to conclude that half-secret trusts rest on a different basis to fully secret trusts, although this has been disapproved by the House of Lords, primarily on practical grounds. (Full article...)

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Thomas Jefferson Hogg (24 May 1792 – 27 August 1862) was a British barrister and writer best known for his friendship with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hogg was raised in County Durham, but spent most of his life in London. He and Shelley became friends while studying at University College, Oxford, and remained close until Shelley's death. During their time at Oxford they collaborated on several literary projects, culminating in their joint expulsion following the publication of an essay titled "The Necessity of Atheism". They remained good friends, but their relationship was sometimes strained because of Hogg's attraction to the women who were romantically involved with Shelley.

Hogg became a barrister and met Jane Williams, who had become a close friend of Percy Shelley's shortly before the poet's death. Jane became Hogg's common-law wife and they had two children together. The family settled in London, although Hogg's legal career meant that he often had to travel away from home.

While living in London Hogg made the acquaintance of several well-known writers, and he published literary works of his own. He studied Greek literature for much of his life and published several articles on the subject, including two entries in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Most of the fiction he wrote was poorly reviewed. His best-known literary work was The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an unfinished biography of the poet. Although the book was well researched and painted a clear picture of Shelley as a young man, it was criticised for portraying him negatively.

Hogg was well connected with Whig politicians. He received an appointment to a government commission on municipal corporations and became a revising barrister. His legal career was moderately successful, but he was often frustrated by his failure to attain his goal of becoming a professor or judge. Nevertheless, he was able to provide for his family thanks to an inheritance and the income from his legal career. (Full article...)

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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 Petition of Right, passed on 7 June 1628, is an English constitutional document setting out specific individual protections against the state, reportedly of equal value to Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689. It was part of a wider conflict between Parliament and the Stuart monarchy that led to the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, ultimately resolved in the 1688-89 Glorious Revolution.

Following a series of disputes with Parliament over granting taxes, in 1627 Charles I imposed "forced loans", and imprisoned those who refused to pay, without trial. This was followed in 1628 by the use of martial law, forcing private citizens to feed, clothe and accommodate soldiers and sailors, which implied the king could deprive any individual of property, or freedom, without justification. It united opposition at all levels of society, particularly those elements the monarchy depended on for financial support, collecting taxes, administering justice etc, since wealth simply increased vulnerability. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Franklin County Courthouse (pictured) incorporates the walls and columns left after Confederate forces burned the previous courthouse during the American Civil War?

... that a bipartisan commission was established by law in 2003 with the mandate to study prison rape in the United States?

... that T. Muthuswamy Iyer was the first Indian judge of the Madras High Court?

... that a grand jury found Arizona Territory's "Thieving Thirteenth" legislature exceeded a US$4,000 legal limitation for operating expenses by US$46,744.50?

... that English gynaecologist Margaret Puxon, who started studying law to prevent boredom while on maternity leave, eventually became a barrister?

... that the Stephen Downing case, also known as the Bakewell Tart murder, has been described as the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history?

... that John B. Creeden was a founder of both Boston College Law School and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service?

More did you know facts

Selected images

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

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that law enforcement in the United States must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements cannot be used as evidence at their trial. Specifically, the Court held that under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot use a person's statements made in response to an interrogation while in police custody as evidence at the person's criminal trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with a lawyer before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them before answering questions.

Miranda was viewed by many as a radical change in American criminal law, since the Fifth Amendment was traditionally understood only to protect Americans against formal types of compulsion to confess, such as threats of contempt of court. It has had a significant impact on law enforcement in the United States, by making what became known as the Miranda warning part of routine police procedure to ensure that suspects were informed of their rights, which would become known as "Miranda rights". The concept of "Miranda warnings" quickly caught on across American law enforcement agencies, who came to call the practice "Mirandizing".

Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court decision Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010), criminal suspects who are aware of their right to silence and to an attorney but choose not to "unambiguously" invoke them, may find any subsequent voluntary statements treated as an implied waiver of their rights, and used as or as part of evidence. At least one scholar has argued that Thompkins "fully undermined" Miranda. (Full article...)

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See also: Lists of case law

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that 90 percent of Indonesia's village-owned enterprises are not legal entities, hampering their ability to attract investors or open bank accounts?
... that Fort Hampton was constructed by the United States Army to warn Americans to leave and keep them from illegally settling in Chickasaw territory?
... that Latin legal maxims like casum sentit dominus have been described as "guardians of eternity [...] more lasting than codifications"?
... that Freedom of Religion South Africa filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to keep child spanking legal?
... that a U.S. Supreme Court case had "odd bedfellows"?
... that South African nurse Stella Madzimbamuto filed an appeal in 1968 with the Privy Council of the United Kingdom that resulted in the Rhodesian government being declared illegal?

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

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