Talk:Law/Archive 4

message: I've removed a majority of the links from the law page but I think it to explain why. First, this page is about the general concept of law as a social construct, it is not about the particular law of any country and so it should not have country specific links. Those links should be put in the article of the laws of the particular country, not here. Second, the page is not indended to be a repository of useful law links. So just because it was useful useful site does not warrant inclusion. Rather, a link should be directly relevant and should aid in the understanding of the content of the article, most of them did not. The proliferation of legal dictionaries, news websites, lawyer indices, and other such websites was getting out of control. There is no shortage of these sorts of websites on the internet and none of them are all that distinguishable or authoritative. There was really no good reason to have them. --PullUpYourSocks 03:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: Why does Illegal link to this article? Folajimi 04:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably because "legality" is determined by what the law is. -PullUpYourSocks 04:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IANAL (no pun intended), and you are probably right, but what if I need that wiki to create another article about an infamous entity that has been reported to use that term as a moniker? Folajimi 04:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inquiry regarding 'Illegal' redirection. 

message: Till such time as something does get written under this title, does it not make more sense to remove it from the page. It somehow gives the idea that the page is incomplete. I know it will be incomplete without the history part, but what is the use of shouting about it!
Priyatu 09:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove 'History of Law' section 

message: "Law" is a group of agreements made by the people of a society, or their representatives, agreements which the people consider will insure their continuted survival. It is an effort toward survival as a society, an insurance against travial.Terryeo 01:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  why is law necessary 

message: What about martial law? Doesn't that deserve a mention in here in some way? (The reason I'm not inserting it myself is I'm not too sure about where it would fit in and exactly what it is myself) 68.39.174.238 00:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is anything unique about martial law that warrants mention over any other type of law but it would probably be worth listing in List of areas of law. -PullUpYourSocks 06:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question... 

message: The failure of one contributor to this article to accept edits which acknowledge the difference between giving legal advice and giving legal fact* sponsors concern that other articles in the Wikipedia may need constant scrutiny to eliminate half truth as well. 
(*Edits which make the distinction between legal fact and legal advice are quickly erased: i.e. "The giving of legal advice is the telling of what should or should not be done whereas the giving of legal fact is the telling of what can and what can not be done.")
Such erasure suggests the intent of this editor is to prevent the difference between legal fact and legal advice from being acknowledged so that legal fact will continue to be regarded as legal advice and the law maintained as a trade secret and the public process as a business owned and operated by the legal profession. --User:Pce3@ij.net (Patrick Eberhart) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pce3@ij.net (talk • contribs) 04:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue here is not about repressing the truth, but rather about properly framing your contribution. Inserting a criticism about the distinction between legal advice and legal information within the first few lines of an article about the global concept of law is totally inappropriate. I could hardly imagine your criticism applies equally to every legal system in history. If you want your contribution to last I would suggest that you find a better way to articulate within a concrete system or circumstances and to cite it so it does not sound like your own home-brewed theory. --PullUpYourSocks 14:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

text: What you are claiming here high debatable. You will need to substantiate your claim using more than just analogies to public libraries and food preparation. --PullUpYourSocks 11:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I do not see how you have not proven anything. Rather you have made a number of claims based on some questionable assumptions without showing corroborating evidence. Supporting your claim through personal experience and "common knowledge" is unconvincing and does not meet the standard practice here on wikipedia of contributing verifiable information. The burden is upon you to substantiate your claim and until such time your contribution will be deleted. I would also ask that you refrain from expressing your frustration within the article text. This is vandalism and it will get you blocked from editing. --PullUpYourSocks 02:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: A link to the meaning of legal advice is enough for this context. As I have said before "legal advice" is not a universal term, and where it is used its meaning is interpreted differently between jurisdictions. In any event, details such as the advice/information distinction is not fundamental to law so it is inappropriate here. Your vigorous insistence to push this "trade secret" descriptor with without any reference to texts or writing and your apparent anamosity towards the legal profession is making it exceptionally difficult for us to come to an agreement on this issue, and unless this changes you will continue to be remain unable to add such content to the article. --PullUpYourSocks 03:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Since the article is about law everywhere, it is necessary to have a degree of ambiguity, hence the use of qualifiers such as "most often". There is really no way around this. We cannot treat any legal system as more worthy of descrition than any other system ,so if we go into detail on the meaning of a term in one part of the world, it follows we must to the same for every other one. This is not practical for this particular article. Accordingly, I trust that the separate article on "legal advice" will satisfy your desire for clarification on the term. --PullUpYourSocks 20:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: A lawyer might be able to agree that Law is: "intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments" but a thinking person would instead say, "Law is the commonly agreed on, but formal statements by which a society may continue to survive in the manner its members agree on."  That's the theory and ideas.  Of course I recognize it is far more popular to consider law to be a series of punishments, a series of arguements, a series of enforcements, but those are equivalent to our "guidelines" rather than a parallel to our "policies" on wikipedia.  Law is both policy and later, as implemented by law enforcement, is actual how - to guidelines.  But it originates as a philosophy of agreements, not as an "intent" by "Big Brother" whom no man is responsible for. Terryeo 01:22, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Truth About The Law And This Article

message: I have a slight problem defining law as something that guarantees the impartial treatment of people as is noted in the first paragraph.  Although that may be something we aspire to, such a statement is a clear value judgment.  Further more, much of the law currently in place around the world does not at all guarantee impartial treatment.  Gender and Ethnic inequalities are still prevalent and enforced though law--should such legal systems not be deemed "law" simply because they enforce clear  unjustices (at least in my Western understanding)? Zschaps 03:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an important point. At the moment the second sentence says that legal systems are "united in their attempt to ensure impartial treatment of those suspected of breaking the rules and to bring about justice" (my emphasis). Is this wording strong enough to suggest that the attempt is sometimes/often unsuccessful? One must bear in mind that it is the legal systems themselves that define the concepts of impartiality and justice - so it is not immediately apparent that one can stand removed from them and objectively judge them as getting it wrong. Andeggs 22:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Impartial' Treatment section

message: "proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments" Does not address the issues by which Law first comes into existence.  There are other difficulties with it too.  Law first comes into existence as an agreement amongst parties, this is an action.  Yes, it is a "specified relationship" but more generally it is an action which enhances the agreed upon survival of the parties concerned.  Law is an action which people create toward their percieved better survival.  Laws is not passed with the idea of decreasing survival, Law comes into existence as man's effort to improve his own survival.  The introduction misses the point of Law and instead presents that law belongs in the loft where it is to be revered as "impartial punishements".  That isn't the case.  Man creates his own laws, he abides by them or doesn't as an effort toward community survival, better survival, long term guidelines toward a more comfortable life.  The introduction misses the point of law.Terryeo 18:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The intent and necessity of law 

message: Shall we put the template here? Skinnyweed 20:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. At least not until my proposed redesign of that template goes through ;+) Please comment on the talk page there. Andeggs 16:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Law Template? 

message: I came across this analysis of the difference between UK and US systems of law. It seems an important distinction, since many en.wikipedia users will looks to one of those two or seek to contrast the European and US legal models.
:"The British government is organized around the idea of Parliamentary supremacy. Although British judges review statutes for consistency with the (unwritten) constitution, all they can do is issue a “statement of incompatibility” — unlike our courts which routinely declare laws void as unconstitutional. If Parliament decides not to take a ruling from the highest courts seriously, it has the last word, not the courts. The Prime Minister is an agent of Parliament—unlike our President, he is not elected directly by the people, and he serves at the pleasure of Parliament. The highest court — the Law Lords — is technically a committee of the upper house of Parliament (the House of Lords). The very idea of separation of powers is to this extent foreign to the English system, and so we shouldn’t be surprised that they developed a 'state secrets' privilege that lets the executive trump judicial review." 
Any idea where a summary of this rather important distinction goes in the law section? Is there an article covering "Comparison of US and UK legal systems?" FT2 (Talk | email) 10:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important point, not sure which law article it belongs in 

message: I agree with the above contribution that states the law has no agreed definition. The Law page needs careful writing without assumptions such as all legal systams aim to achieve justice (they do not). Also, the definitions of the branches of law are unusual such as 'religious law'.
The law page needs to be less assertive and acknowledge the difficulties of its own defition. Once done any descriptions of law and jurisdictions have been qualified and therefore would face less argument and editing. Richardss 16:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it would be nice to see the introductory paragraph(s) indicate a more simple/basic definition of "law".  See (for example only) the start of the MSN Encarta article on law.  Most definitions of law provide that it is the binding agreements of the community (even in a totalitarian system, the community is in tacit agreement to survive under the ultimate ruler's decisions of law).  I still believe most of the text as it is has good merit to it in many senses, but I think it begins the discussion midway in a thought stream an therefore assumes too much of the author's mindset about what "law" is before it gets into the hows, whys, and what-ifs (which will vary too much from system to system to be defined in the introduction).  Rather than edit them in place, it would be best to overhaul the intro in my opinion.  ju66l3r 16:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many assumptions 

message: Hello. For such an important article, this one is in a complete mess. Much of the content is either:
* sweeping generalisation ("Responsibilities and rights are the language of law.");
* too specific (e.g. the material on offer, acceptance, consideration and intention in common law contract);
* wrong ("we may not intentionally harm others' interests without losing our liberty and becoming criminals); or
* poorly written ("An 'invitation to treat' is a fancy legal term for 'ad'").
It's the first time I've attempted this, but I've begun what I hope will become a complete rewrite. So far I've done the first paragraph and contract law. Hoping others come along to help - my time is quite limited at the moment. Crebbin 15:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, this page needs a lot of work.  I've been trying to focus on style issues since I feel I'm not knowledgable enough to make major content changes.  One problem that keeps cropping up: unnecessary capitalization ("Tax Law", "History of Law"). We definitely need to see less writing in the first and second person (for example, "Real property refers to land and personal property can be anything else that I can call 'mine'. In property law you learn about mortgages, landlord and tenant relations, covenants, easements and registration of land.") Schi 20:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite 

message: 1. Please provide as many references as possible, and do not delete current ones.
2. Please avoid a definition of law at the start of the article - read about Jurisprudence first, and why this is such a contentious thing.
User:Wikidea
:I think an adequate definition of law is both possible and desirable. At present the first line of the article reads:
::Law is an attempt to mediate between people's interests where they interact. The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness and justice in society.
:To me, that wouldn't really help someone coming to the article to understand what law is. It seems a little too vague to be of much use. I understand that a definition of law might be a matter of debate, but we can surely do better. My favoured version, which I'd written into an earlier version of this article, runs something along the lines of:
::The law is the body of rules of a society that are enforceable through a system of courts.
:It's similar in essence to the definitions at Dictionary.com, the 1913 Webster's Dictionary, Wiktionary and the Oxford Dictionary of Law (none of which mention mediation between people's interests where they interact or anything similar, by the way).
:I know little about Jurisprudence, but judging by the Wikipedia article it seems to be more concerned with the ultimate source of law, how it's justified, why we should follow it, etc etc, than it does about definitions of law and why they're difficult (the article doesn't mention the word 'define' or similar once).
:The first lines of the Law article should attempt to define what the law is, rather than the meaning behind it or what it seeks to achieve. Thoughts?? Crebbin 19:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: Just found quite a lot of material on 'what is law' at Philosophy of law (possibly due for a merge with Jurisprudence?) which does argue the question of the proper definition of law. Worth a look. I'd still favour the straightforward definition proposed above, however, though perhaps qualified by a link to the controversy. The arguments between positivism, natural law, realism and interpretivism are sophisticated beyond the scope of an opening paragraph in an article on simply 'Law'. Crebbin 19:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I much prefer your straightforward definition as well. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines law thus:
 a (1) : a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority (2) : the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules (3) : COMMON LAW b (1) : the control brought about by the existence or enforcement of such law (2) : the action of laws considered as a means of redressing wrongs; also : LITIGATION (3) : the agency of or an agent of established law c : a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe d : something compatible with or enforceable by established law e : CONTROL, AUTHORITY
I like "binding custom or practice of a community".  I'll check how Black's defines "law" later too. Schi 19:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing this page 

message: How can the introduction to an article about law speak almost only about laws? It looks like it's playing with words... Has someone noticed that this introduction wouldn't be meaningfully transtable to any other European language? It is about two different things! Velho 04:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Law and laws