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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 photograph of Ruto

The International Criminal Court investigation in Kenya or the situation in the Republic of Kenya was an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the responsibility for the 2007–2008 post-election violence in Kenya. The 2007–2008 crisis followed the presidential election that was held on 27 December 2007. The Electoral Commission of Kenya officially declared that the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected however supporters of the opposition candidate Raila Odinga accused the government of electoral fraud and rejected the results. A series of protests and demonstrations followed, and fighting—mainly along ethnic lines—led to an estimated 1,200 deaths and more than 500,000 people becoming internally displaced.

After failed attempts to conduct a criminal investigation of the key perpetrators in Kenya, the matter was referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In 2010, the Prosecutor of the ICC Luis Moreno Ocampo announced that he was seeking summonses for six people: Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Industrialisation Minister Henry Kosgey, Education Minister William Ruto, Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura, radio executive Joshua Arap Sang and former police commissioner Mohammed Hussein Ali. The six suspects, known colloquially as the "Ocampo six" were indicted by the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II on 8 March 2011 on charges of crimes against humanity and summoned to appear before the Court.

On 23 January 2012 Pre-Trial Chamber II confirmed the charges against Kenyatta, Muthaura, Sang and Ruto and dismissed the charges against Kosgey and Ali. The charges against Francis Muthaura and Uhuru Kenyatta were subsequently withdrawn by the prosecution. The trial of William Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang began on 10 September 2013, and ended on 5 April 2016 with the charges being dismissed. During the investigation the ICC prosecutor charged Walter Barasa, Paul Gicheru and Philip Bett with crimes against the administration of justice. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Black and white photograph of a seated man.

George Morison Robertson (February 26, 1821 – March 12, 1867) was an early politician and judge in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Born in Scotland, he settled in Hawaii in 1844 during the whaling era. During his career in Hawaii, he served in many political and judicial posts including circuit judge and police court judge, member of the Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles, a multiple-term representative in the Hawaiian legislature, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii and Minister of the Interior. (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 scan of an old document

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...)

Did you know...

Red dresses representing missing and murdered Indigenous women.

  • ... that after the death of Olaseni Lewis, who was restrained by 11 police officers, UK law was changed to require police to wear body cameras when dealing with vulnerable people?

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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...)


Seal

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases had found the United States Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with any or all forms of private sexual activities between consenting adults.

In 1998, John Geddes Lawrence Jr. was arrested along with Tyron Garner at Lawrence's apartment in Harris County, Texas. Garner's former boyfriend had called the police, claiming that there was a man with a weapon in the apartment. Sheriff's deputies said they found the men engaging in sexual intercourse. Lawrence and Garner were charged with a misdemeanor under Texas' anti-sodomy law; both pleaded no contest and received a fine. Assisted by the American civil rights organization Lambda Legal, Lawrence and Garner appealed their sentences to the Texas Courts of Appeals, which ruled in 2000 that the sodomy law was unconstitutional. Texas appealed to have the court rehear the case en banc, and in 2001 it overturned its prior judgment and upheld the law. Lawrence appealed this decision to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which denied his request for appeal. Lawrence then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case.

The Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas in a 6–3 decision, and by extension invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, thus protecting from governmental regulation throughout the U.S. all forms of private, consensual sexual activity between adults. In the same case, the Court overturned its previous ruling in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it had upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. It explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that the previous ruling had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Full article...)

More Did you know (auto-generated)

6 August 2026 – Proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance
The Competition and Markets Authority of the United Kingdom clears Paramount Skydance's US$110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, while culture secretary Lisa Nandy declines a public-interest review after receiving commitments on editorial independence. (AA)
6 August 2026 – 2026 Morocco–Spain border incident
Ceuta mayor-president Juan Jesús Vivas confirms that at least 100 people died during last week's migrant surge into the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta, while around 3,500 to 5,000 undocumented migrants remain in the city. (Reuters)
5 August 2026 – War on drugs, Illegal drug trade in Latin America, Crime in Spain
The Spanish Civil Guard and the Ecuadorian National Police announce they have arrested 44 people and confiscated 21 tons of cocaine as part of a multiyear investigation on a drug trafficking ring financed by investors in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP)
4 August 2026 –
Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov signs a law banning the use of cremation for deceased human bodies in Kyrgyzstan. (AKIPress) (Kabar)
South Sudanese police arrests 60 suspected gang members in a series of operations targeting criminal gangs, drug trafficking, and youth delinquency in Juba. (Sudans Post)

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