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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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The illustration depicts a naked man on a ladder being cut open by a person on an adjacent ladder as the crowd watches excitedly. A great fire burns beneath them in the centre of the picture.

To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

The same punishment applied to traitors against the king in Ireland from the 15th century onward; William Overy was hanged, drawn and quartered by Lord Lieutenant Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in 1459, and from the reign of King Henry VII it was made part of statute law. Matthew Lambert was among the most notable Irishmen to suffer this punishment, in 1581 in Wexford.

The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the monarch's authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment. Although some convicts had their sentences modified and suffered a less ignominious end, over a period of several hundred years many men found guilty of high treason were subjected to the law's ultimate sanction. They included many Catholic priests executed during the Elizabethan era, and several of the regicides involved in the 1649 execution of Charles I. (Full article...)

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Sir Aubrey Melford Steed Stevenson, PC (17 October 1902 – 26 December 1987), usually known as Sir Melford Stevenson, was an English barrister and, later, a High Court judge, whose judicial career was marked by his controversial conduct and outspoken views.

After establishing a legal career in the field of insolvency, Stevenson served during the Second World War as a Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces. He was subsequently Judge Advocate at the 1945 war crimes trial of former personnel of the German submarine U-852 for their actions in what became known as the Peleus affair. In 1954 Stevenson represented the government of British Kenya during Jomo Kenyatta's unsuccessful appeal against his conviction for membership of the rebel organisation Mau Mau. Later that year he represented the litigants in the Crichel Down affair, which led to changes in the law on compulsory purchase. In 1955 he defended Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed for murder in the United Kingdom. He was deeply distressed by the execution of Ellis, for whom there had been no defence in law, but whom Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George was expected to reprieve. Two years later, Stevenson took part in the unsuccessful prosecution of John Bodkin Adams for the murder of Edith Alice Morrell.

Stevenson became a High Court judge in 1957, and acquired a reputation for severity in sentencing. He sentenced the Kray twins to life imprisonment in 1969, with a recommendation that they serve not less than 30 years each. In 1970 Stevenson passed long sentences on eight Cambridge University students who took part in the Garden House riot, and the following year gave Jake Prescott of the Angry Brigade 15 years for conspiracy to cause explosions.

One of his fellow judges, Sir Robin Dunn, described him as "the worst judge since the war". After Dunn's attack, several high-profile legal figures came to Stevenson's defence, among them fellow judge and biographer Lord Roskill, who pointed out that Stevenson could be merciful to those he regarded as victims. Lord Devlin described Stevenson as the "last of the grand eccentrics". Mr Justice Stevenson retired from the bench in 1979 aged 76, and died at St Leonards in East Sussex on 26 December 1987. (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 Ordinances of 1311 (The New Ordinances, Norman: Les noveles Ordenances) were a series of regulations imposed upon King Edward II by the peerage and clergy of the Kingdom of England to restrict the power of the English monarch. The twenty-one signatories of the Ordinances are referred to as the Lords Ordainers, or simply the Ordainers. English setbacks in the Scottish war, combined with perceived extortionate royal fiscal policies, set the background for the writing of the Ordinances in which the administrative prerogatives of the king were largely appropriated by a baronial council. The Ordinances reflect the Provisions of Oxford and the Provisions of Westminster from the late 1250s, but unlike the Provisions, the Ordinances featured a new concern with fiscal reform, specifically redirecting revenues from the king's household to the exchequer.

Just as instrumental to their conception were other issues, particularly discontent with the king's favourite, Piers Gaveston, whom the barons subsequently banished from the realm. Edward II accepted the Ordinances only under coercion, and a long struggle for their repeal ensued that did not end until Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the leader of the Ordainers, was executed in 1322. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

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

... that the case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co established the precedents for UK contract law?

... that Swarup Rani Nehru (pictured)appealed to women to make salt in defiance of the salt laws in British India?

... that although the Chancery Amendment Act 1858 was repealed in the United Kingdom, it is still valid in the Republic of Ireland and parts of Canada?

... that freedom of religion in Singapore, which is guaranteed by Article 15 of the Constitution of Singapore, may be restricted by a general law relating to public order, public health or morality?

... that Peter Rosted served as chief judge at Norway's Inderøy District Court for 46 years, from 1733 to 1776?

... that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act extinguished all aboriginal title in Alaska?

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Selected images

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

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...)

The Tichborne case was a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. He failed to convince the courts, was convicted of perjury and served a long prison sentence.

Roger Tichborne, heir to the family's title and fortunes, was presumed to have died in a shipwreck in 1854 at age 25. His mother clung to a belief that he might have survived, and after hearing rumours that he had made his way to Australia, she advertised extensively in Australian newspapers, offering a reward for information. In 1866, a Wagga Wagga butcher known as Thomas Castro came forward claiming to be Roger Tichborne. Although his manners and bearing were unrefined, he gathered support and travelled to England. He was instantly accepted by Lady Tichborne as her son, although other family members were dismissive and sought to expose him as an impostor.

During protracted enquiries before the case went to court in 1871, details emerged suggesting that the Claimant might be Arthur Orton, a butcher's son from Wapping in London, who had gone to sea as a boy and had last been heard of in Australia. After a civil court had rejected the Claimant's case, he was charged with perjury; while awaiting trial he campaigned throughout the country to gain popular support. In 1874, a criminal court jury decided that he was not Roger Tichborne and declared him to be Arthur Orton. Before passing a sentence of 14 years, the judge condemned the behaviour of the Claimant's counsel, Edward Kenealy, who was subsequently disbarred because of his conduct. (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 the Campanha da Legalidade was a mobilization led by Governor Leonel Brizola to guarantee the inauguration of João Goulart as the 24th president of Brazil?
... that a guerrilla garden established atop an abandoned railroad in Long Island City became legally recognized by the MTA?
... that in a court case, William Gregson was awarded £30 for every enslaved person that his crew had murdered in the Zong massacre?
... that American legal scholar John Hart Ely penned a law review article castigating the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, despite being pro-choice?
... that Singaporean broadcaster Lee Fook Hong legally changed his name to Lee Dai Sor (literally 'Lee Big Fool' in Cantonese) after being accused of tax evasion?

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General images

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

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

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