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Common law, the body of customary law, based on judicial decisions and embodied in reports of decided cases, that has been administered by the courts of England since the Middle Ages. From it has evolved the legal systems found in the United States and most of the Commonwealth countries as well.
common law, Body of law based on custom and general principles and that, embodied in case law, serves as precedent or is applied to situations not covered by statute.
Common law - English, American, Commonwealth: The legal systems rooted in the English common law have diverged from their parent system so greatly over time that, in many areas, the legal approaches of common-law countries differ as much from one another as they do from civil-law countries.
Criminal law, the body of law that defines criminal offenses, regulates the apprehension, charging, and trial of suspected persons, and fixes penalties and modes of treatment applicable to convicted offenders. Learn more about the principles and types of criminal law in this article.
Law, the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct of a community that are recognized as binding by the community. Learn more about the various systems, institutions, and fields of law in the entries mentioned in this article.
Administrative law, the legal framework within which public administration is carried out. It derives from the need to create and develop a system of public administration under law, a concept that may be compared with the much older notion of justice under law.
tort, in common law, civil law, and the vast majority of legal systems that derive from them, any instance of harmful behaviour, such as physical attack on one’s person or interference with one’s possessions or with the use and enjoyment of one’s land, economic interests (under certain conditions), honour, reputation, and privacy.
Constitutional law, the body of rules, doctrines, and practices that govern the operation of political communities. In modern times the most important political community has been the state. Modern constitutional law is the offspring of nationalism as well as of the idea that the state must protect.
Law in the United States, as in all nations sharing the Anglo-U.S. legal tradition, is derived largely from judicial precedents established in earlier cases. The body of precedents is known as the common law. Legislation in the states sometimes changes the common-law rules.
Common law - Criminal Law, Procedure, Jurisdiction: In regard to criminal law, the substance of the law is much the same throughout the common-law countries. In both the United Kingdom and the United States, the 20th century was a period during which it was thought that undesirable behaviour could be eliminated by rigorous law enforcement.