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Portal:Law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from P:LAW)

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

Front of historic building used by the regional court in Dresden

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...)

Selected biography

Assata Olugbala Shakur (/əˈsɑːtə ʃəˈkʊər/ ə-SAH-tə shə-KOOR; born JoAnne Deborah Byron, July 16, 1947 – September 25, 2025) was a Black American political activist, revolutionary, and fugitive who was a member of the Black Panther Party, and later the Black Liberation Army. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was wanted by the FBI, with a $1 million reward for information leading to her capture, and an additional $1 million reward offered by the New Jersey attorney general. She was never caught and remained a fugitive for 45 years.

Born in Flushing, Queens, Shakur grew up in New York City and Wilmington, North Carolina. After running away from home several times, she was taken in by an aunt, who later acted as one of her lawyers. Shakur became involved in political activism while attending the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York. After graduation, she adopted the name Assata Shakur and briefly joined the Black Panther Party before becoming a member of the BLA.

Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was charged with several crimes, leading to a multi-state manhunt. On May 2, 1973, Shakur, along with BLA members Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli, were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike. The incident escalated into a shootout with State Troopers Werner Foerster and James Harper. Foerster was killed and Harper was wounded; Zayd Shakur was killed, and both Assata Shakur and Acoli were wounded. At her 1977 trial, Shakur was convicted on multiple charges, including the murder of Foerster and the assault of Harper, and was sentenced to life plus 26 to 33 years in prison. Shakur maintained that she could not have fired the shots that wounded Harper and killed Foerster, as her right arm had been injured by police gunfire early in the confrontation.

While serving her sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey, Shakur escaped in 1979 with the assistance of members of the BLA and the May 19th Communist Organization. She was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984, where she resided for the remainder of her life despite ongoing efforts by the U.S. government to secure her extradition. In 2013, the FBI added her to its FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list under the name Joanne Deborah Chesimard, making her the first woman to be listed. Shakur died on September 25, 2025, at the age of 78, according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry. (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 black and white photograph of Clement Attlee

The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the two Acts are to be construed as one.

The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 13) asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords (the suspensory veto). Provided the provisions of the Act are met, legislation can be passed without the approval of the House of Lords. Additionally, the 1911 act amended the Septennial Act 1716 to reduce the maximum life of a Parliament from seven years to five years. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the Parliament Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 103), which further limited the power of the Lords by reducing the time that they could delay bills, from two years to one.

The Parliament Acts have been used to pass legislation against the wishes of the House of Lords on seven occasions since 1911, including the passing of the Parliament Act 1949. Some constitutional lawyers had questioned the validity of the 1949 act. These doubts were rejected in 2005 when members of the Countryside Alliance unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the Hunting Act 2004, which had been passed under the auspices of the Act. In October 2005, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords dismissed the Alliance's appeal against this decision, with an unusually large panel of nine Law Lords (out of then-existing twelve) holding that the 1949 act was a valid act of Parliament. (Full article...)

Did you know...

Photographs of a woman standing at a podium and gesturing.

  • ... that Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs′ legal challenge to be added to the Amsterdam electoral rolls backfired, leading to a constitutional amendment granting voting rights only to men?
  • ... that when Henry McCardie was a barrister, he often worked so late that his chambers were nicknamed "the lighthouse", as there was light coming from the windows?
  • ... that the diaries of James Humphreys, the "Emperor of Porn", were used to convict 13 policemen of accepting his bribes?

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...)


Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare Pty Ltd, (Baxter) was a decision of the High Court of Australia, which ruled on 29 August 2007 that Baxter Healthcare Proprietary Limited, a tenderer for various government contracts, was bound by the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA, Australian legislation governing anti-competitive behaviour) in its trade and commerce in tendering for government contracts. More generally, the case concerned the principles of derivative governmental immunity: whether the immunity of a government from a statute extends to third parties that conduct business with the government.

The High Court's judgment marked a successful appeal for the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the Australian regulator of anti-competitive conduct, having lost at first instance and on appeal in the Federal Court of Australia. The ACCC was again successful when the case was remitted to the Federal Court for reconsideration, ending eight years of litigation between the parties. The High Court's judgment was received as a significant precedent in the law of derivative governmental immunity in Australia. (Full article...)

More Did you know (auto-generated)

26 September 2026 – Crime in South Africa
Eighteen people are killed and 14 more are injured in a mass shooting carried out by eight gunmen at a tavern in Carletonville, Gauteng, South Africa. Police launch a manhunt for the gunmen. It is suspected that the shooting is linked to a dispute over illegal gold mining. (The Citizen) (Reuters)
26 September 2026 –
India's Election Commission orders a review of its voter-roll software after concerns arise over changes that excluded millions of voters. A committee will examine whether the software complied with election laws and rules. (Reuters)
25 September 2026 –
A court in Paris, France, sentences Loik Le Priol to 26 years in prison and Romain Bouvier to 19 years for murdering former Argentine rugby union player Federico Martín Aramburú in 2022. Le Priol and Bouvier had links to the dissolved far-right group Groupe Union Défense. (AP) (BBC News)
24 September 2026 – Hijab and burqa controversies in Europe, Islam in Italy
Italy's government approves a decree capping foreign students with limited Italian proficiency at 30% per classroom and banning burqas and niqabs in schools. The measure takes effect immediately but requires parliamentary approval within 60 days. (AP)
23 September 2026 – Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases
A court in New York, United States, sentences former film producer Harvey Weinstein to 15 years in prison for committing a criminal sexual act against former production assistant Miriam Haley. (BBC News)

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