A legal article is a piece of writing about law which may be written by a lawyer or layperson. It is not uncommon for a legal article to comment on recent changes in legislation and may take a position on controversial issues. Such articles are often very technical and are intended for an audience with a high level of knowledge on the subject being discussed.
Law is a set of rules which govern the behavior of people within a society. They are designed to ensure a peaceful society and can be used to punish people who break them. Ideally, laws should be fair and equitable but in reality they are often influenced by many factors which make them difficult to apply in an ideal way.
People must respect the law and obey it or chaos will reign in society. This is why there are a number of different types of laws, such as criminal, labour and commercial laws. Laws also vary by jurisdiction, such as the laws of a particular state or country.
The concept of law has been interpreted in various ways by philosophers and theologians. Hans Kelsen created the ‘pure theory of law’ which states that the law is a ‘normative science’. He believed that the law is an ‘organic growth’ which develops from custom and that it must always conform to the consciousness of the people. Friedrich Karl von Savigny had a more historical approach to the law definition. He argued that laws should be based on the customs of the time and place, rather than on what is considered morally right.
Laws are usually created by a legislative body and then passed on to the courts for enforcement. In common law systems, the decisions of the courts are also recognised as laws and placed on equal footing with legislative statutes. This is known as the doctrine of stare decisis. This means that a court’s decision will bind lower courts, so that similar cases will reach the same conclusion.
Other laws are based on religious precepts and can be derived through interpretation, Qiyas (reasoning by analogy), Ijma (consensus) or precedent. Islamic law and Jewish Halakha are examples of this type of law. Other religions, such as Christianity, have church canon laws which still survive.
There are also specialised laws such as aviation law, maritime law, shipping laws and medical jurisprudence. Other specialties include employment law, family law and property law. Immigration law and nationality laws deal with the rights of people to live and work in a nation-state that is not their own and to acquire or lose citizenship. The field of law is also extending to areas such as intellectual property, biolaw and corporate law. All of these fields require a detailed knowledge of the law and a willingness to research the latest developments in the law. A legal article that aims to educate readers about the laws that they must follow is therefore very important.
