Law is a collection of rules that form a framework to ensure a peaceful society. When people break these laws they are subject to punishment. Law can also refer to the legal profession.
Law informs the way we live in many ways, and there are numerous branches of law that encompass a variety of different areas of life. Contract law regulates agreements to exchange goods and services, while property law determines one’s rights and responsibilities toward tangible and intangible possessions. Criminal law determines the punishments for breaking certain crimes, such as murder.
Roscoe Pound, a famous sociology professor, conceived of the term law in much broader terms than a set of rules that govern human behavior. He believed that law acts as a social control mechanism and that its purpose is to serve the interests of the state.
A law may be enforced by a variety of mechanisms, such as police, courts, and the military. It is often enforceable through economic or other coercive powers, such as taxation.
There are many theories on what constitutes a law, but the most widely accepted definition is that a law is a set of binding requirements that individuals must abide by. These requirements are generally known, easily accessible, and stable.
The rule of law is another concept that refers to the fundamental principles of how a government should operate and manage its citizens. This includes core concepts such as checks and balances on government power, transparency and accountability, and a separation of church and state.
In some countries, laws are enacted by legislative bodies such as Congress and state legislatures. In other nations, laws are crafted by executive agencies or judicial tribunals. A judge or jury decides whether a defendant breaks the law by using evidence and arguments presented in court.
The law can include many types of documents, including statutes, regulations, case law, and judicial decisions. A statute is a written, legally binding document that establishes how the law applies in a particular situation. The Black’s Law Dictionary describes an annotated statute as “a document that combines statutory language with citations to cases, regulations, and secondary sources.”
Case law is a set of decisions made by courts interpreting other laws. The decision of a higher court typically binds lower courts to the same interpretation. This is known as the “doctrine of precedent” or stare decisis.
An en banc is when all judges on an appellate court sit together to hear a case, rather than the typical three-judge panel that usually handles these types of appeals.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists 51 meanings for the word law. Six of those are labelled obsolete. The remaining 29 are still in use, with the most common being a set of rules or guidelines that govern human behavior. Other uses include: