What About Law?: Studying Law at University

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In addition, courts of a particular level are generally bound by decisions of other courts at the same level. Janet O'Sullivan is Senior Lecturer in Law, Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, winner of Cambridge University Pilkington teaching prize for excellence in university teaching; associate editor, Tottel's Journal of Professional Negligence; solicitor. C., the Bundestag in Berlin, the Duma in Moscow, the Parlamento Italiano in Rome and the Assemblée nationale in Paris.

The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules, numerous amendments and 117,369 words. Japan was the first country to begin modernising its legal system along western lines, by importing parts of the French, but mostly the German Civil Code. When passing the Unfair Contract Terms Act, Parliament had the benefit of guidance from the Law Commission. Thus, each legal system can be hypothesised to have a basic norm ( Grundnorm) instructing us to obey. Is it asking too much to expect a traditional, national legal system to cope with the challenges of an online world?

It might have caused a nuisance to neighbours living nearby and those neighbours might have contacted the local authority, whose noise-prevention officers have powers to close the party down or require the noise to be reduced in some other way. Jeremy Bentham and his student Austin, following David Hume, believed that this conflated the "is" and what "ought to be" problem.

The small Greek city-state, ancient Athens, from about the 8th century BC was the first society to be based on broad inclusion of its citizenry, excluding women and enslaved people.

This body, consisting of judges, barristers, solicitors and academic lawyers, considers whether particular areas of law need reform, puts proposals for change out to consultation with lawyers and other interested parties, and produces reports detailing its final conclusions. d] In Muslim countries, courts often examine whether state laws adhere to the Sharia: the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt may invalidate such laws, [128] and in Iran the Guardian Council ensures the compatibility of the legislation with the "criteria of Islam". By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. So, for example, the Court of Appeal is bound by other, earlier, decisions of the Court of Appeal, although on very rare occasions it is possible for the Court of Appeal to overrule one of its own earlier decisions. Examples include a Master of Laws, a Master of Legal Studies, a Bar Professional Training Course or a Doctor of Laws.

For many of the questions, there is no obvious ‘right’ answer, because the law is surprisingly open to more than one interpretation and because considerations of policy and fairness do not always point in the same direction. To give you an example, the right for parents with children and those with caring responsibilities to request flexible working hours is laid down in general terms in the Employment Rights Act 1996. By now, you will have worked out that existing common law cases, and the rules set down in them, are important in deciding new cases. Some countries allow their highest judicial authority to overrule legislation they determine to be unconstitutional. Their principle was that no person should be able to usurp all powers of the state, in contrast to the absolutist theory of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.The statutory rules may also be accompanied by other documents which are not always legally binding but offer guidance to judges and other officials striving to apply these rules. Similarly, traditional Chinese law gave way to westernisation towards the final years of the Qing Dynasty in the form of six private law codes based mainly on the Japanese model of German law. In developing the common law, academic writings have always played an important part, both to collect overarching principles from dispersed case law, and to argue for change. When passing the Unfair Contract Terms Act, Parliament had the benefit of guidance from the Law Commission. Main article: Legal history King Hammurabi is revealed the code of laws by the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash, also revered as the god of justice.