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 Home > By Career > Arts, Law and Languages > Law, Legal
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Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social
institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics
and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between
people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on
derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related to the
transfer and title of personal and real property. Trust law applies to assets held
for investment and financial security, while tort law allows claims for compensation
if a person's rights or property are harmed. If the harm is criminalised in legislation,
criminal law offers means by which the state can prosecute the perpetrator. Constitutional
law provides a framework for the creation of law, the protection of human rights
and the election of political representatives. Administrative law is used to review
the decisions of government agencies, while international law governs affairs between
sovereign states in activities ranging from trade to environmental regulation or
military action. Writing in 350 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle declared, "The
rule of law is better than the rule of any individual."
Legal systems elaborate rights and responsibilities in a variety of ways.
A general distinction can be made between civil law jurisdictions, which codify
their laws, and common law systems, where judge made law is not consolidated. In
some countries, religion informs the law. Law provides a rich source of scholarly
inquiry, into legal history, philosophy, economic analysis or sociology. Law also
raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness and justice. "In
its majestic equality", said the writer Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids
rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves
of bread." In a typical democracy, the central institutions for interpreting and
creating law are the three main branches of government, namely an impartial judiciary,
a democratic legislature, and an accountable executive. To implement and enforce
the law and provide services to the public, a government's bureaucracy, the military
and police are vital. While all these organs of the state are creatures created
and bound by law, an independent legal profession and a vibrant civil society inform
and support their progress.
Legal subjects
All legal systems deal with the same basic issues, but jurisdictions categorise
and identify its legal subjects in different ways. A common distinction is that
between "public law" (a term related closely to the state, and including constitutional,
administrative and criminal law), and "private law" (which covers contract, tort
and property).In civil law systems, contract and tort fall under a general law of
obligations, while trusts law is dealt with under statutory regimes or international
conventions. International, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law,
contract, tort, property law and trusts are regarded as the "traditional core subjects",
although there are many further disciplines .
International law
International law can refer to three things: public international law, private international
law or conflict of laws and the law of supranational organisations.
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Lady Justice is the symbol of the judiciary.Justice is depicted as a goddess equipped
with three symbols of the rule of law: a sword symbolising the court's coercive
power; scales representing an objective standard by which competing claims are weighed;
and a blindfold indicating that justice is (or should be) meted out objectively,
without fear or favor, regardless of identity, money, power, or weakness
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• Public international law concerns relationships between sovereign nations.
The sources for public international law development are custom, practice and treaties
between sovereign nations, such as the Geneva Conventions. Public international
law can be formed by international organisations, such as the United Nations (which
was established after the failure of the League of Nations to prevent the Second
World War), the International Labour Organisation, the World Trade Organisation,
or the International Monetary Fund. Public international law has a special status
as law because there is no international police force, and courts (e.g. the International
Court of Justice as the primary UN judicial organ) lack the capacity to penalise
disobedience. However, a few bodies, such as the WTO, have effective systems of
binding arbitration and dispute resolution backed up by trade sanctions.
• Conflict of laws (or "private international law" in civil law countries)
concerns which jurisdiction a legal dispute between private parties should be heard
in and which jurisdiction's law should be applied. Today, businesses are increasingly
capable of shifting capital and labour supply chains across borders, as well as
trading with overseas businesses, making the question of which country has jurisdiction
even more pressing. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration
under the New York Convention 1958.
• European Union law is the first and, so far, only example of a supranational
legal framework. Given the trend of increasing global economic integration, many
regional agreements—especially the Union of South American Nations—are on track
to follow the same model. In the EU, sovereign nations have gathered their authority
in a system of courts and political institutions. These institutions are allowed
the ability to enforce legal norms both against or for member states and citizens
in a manner which is not possible through public international law. As the European
Court of Justice said in the 1960s, European Union law constitutes "a new legal
order of international law" for the mutual social and economic benefit of the member
states.
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Constitutional and administrative law
Constitutional and administrative law govern the affairs of the state. Constitutional
law concerns both the relationships between the executive, legislature and judiciary
and the human rights or civil liberties of individuals against the state. Most jurisdictions,
like the United States and France, have a single codified constitution with a bill
of rights. A few, like the United Kingdom, have no such document. A "constitution"
is simply those laws which constitute the body politic, from statute, case law and
convention. A case named Entick v Carrington illustrates a constitutional principle
deriving from the common law. Mr Entick's house was searched and ransacked by Sheriff
Carrington. When Mr Entick complained in court, Sheriff Carrington argued that a
warrant from a Government minister, the Earl of Halifax, was valid authority. However,
there was no written statutory provision or court authority. The leading judge,
Lord Camden, stated that,
The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property.
That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has
not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole ...
If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an authority
against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment.
The fundamental constitutional principle, inspired by John Locke, holds that the
individual can do anything but that which is forbidden by law, and the state may
do nothing but that which is authorised by law.Administrative law is the chief method
for people to hold state bodies to account. People can apply for judicial review
of actions or decisions by local councils, public services or government ministries,
to ensure that they comply with the law. The first specialist administrative court
was the Conseil d'État set up in 1799, as Napoleon assumed power in France.
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Providing a constitution for public international law, the United Nations system
was agreed during World War II
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Criminal law
Criminal law, also known as penal law, pertains to crimes and punishment. It thus
regulates the definition of and penalties for offences found to have a sufficiently
deleterious social impact but, in itself, makes no moral judgment on an offender
nor imposes restrictions on society that physically prevents people from committing
a crime in the first place. Investigating, apprehending, charging, and trying suspected
offenders is regulated by the law of criminal procedure. The paradigm case of a
crime lies in the proof, beyond reasonable doubt, that a person is guilty of two
things. First, the accused must commit an act which is deemed by society to be criminal,
or actus reus (guilty act).Second, the accused must have the requisite malicious
intent to do a criminal act, or mens rea (guilty mind). However for so called "strict
liability" crimes, an actus reus is enough.Criminal systems of the civil law tradition
distinguish between intention in the broad sense (dolus directus and dolus eventualis),
and negligence. Negligence does not carry criminal responsibility unless a particular
crime provides for its punishment.
Contract law
Contract law concerns enforceable promises, and can be summed up in the Latin phrase
pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept). In common law jurisdictions, three
key elements to the creation of a contract are necessary: offer and acceptance,
consideration and the intention to create legal relations. In Carlill v Carbolic
Smoke Ball Company a medical firm advertised that its new wonder drug, the smokeball,
would cure people's flu, and if it did not, the buyers would get £100. Many people
sued for their £100 when the drug did not work. Fearing bankruptcy, Carbolic argued
the advert was not to be taken as a serious, legally binding offer. It was an invitation
to treat, mere puff, a gimmick. But the court of appeal held that to a reasonable
man Carbolic had made a serious offer. People had given good consideration for it
by going to the "distinct inconvenience" of using a faulty product. "Read the advertisement
how you will, and twist it about as you will", said Lord Justice Lindley, "here
is a distinct promise expressed in language which is perfectly unmistakable".
Tort law
Torts, sometimes called delicts, are civil wrongs. To have acted tortiously, one
must have breached a duty to another person, or infringed some pre-existing legal
right. A simple example might be accidentally hitting someone with a cricket ball.
Under the law of negligence, the most common form of tort, the injured party could
potentially claim compensation for his injuries from the party responsible. The
principles of negligence are illustrated by Donoghue v Stevenson.
Property law
Property law governs valuable things that people call 'theirs'. Real property, sometimes
called 'real estate' refers to ownership of land and things attached to it. Personal
property, refers to everything else; movable objects, such as computers, cars, jewelry,
and sandwiches, or intangible rights, such as stocks and shares. A right in rem
is a right to a specific piece of property, contrasting to a right in personam which
allows compensation for a loss, but not a particular thing back. Land law forms
the basis for most kinds of property law, and is the most complex. It concerns mortgages,
rental agreements, licences, covenants, easements and the statutory systems for
land registration. Regulations on the use of personal property fall under intellectual
property, company law, trusts and commercial law. An example of a basic case of
most property law is Armory v Delamirie.A chimney sweep's boy found a jewel encrusted
with precious stones. He took it to a goldsmith to have it valued. The goldsmith's
apprentice looked at it, sneakily removed the stones, told the boy it was worth
three halfpence and that he would buy it. The boy said he would prefer the jewel
back, so the apprentice gave it to him, but without the stones. The boy sued the
goldsmith for his apprentice's attempt to cheat him. Lord Chief Justice Pratt ruled
that even though the boy could not be said to own the jewel, he should be considered
the rightful keeper ("finders keeper") until the original owner is found. In fact
the apprentice and the boy both had a right of possession in the jewel (a technical
concept, meaning evidence that something could belong to someone), but the boy's
possessory interest was considered better, because it could be shown to be first
in time. Possession may be nine tenths of the law, but not all.
This case is used to support the view of property in common law jurisdictions, that
the person who can show the best claim to a piece of property, against any contesting
party, is the owner. By contrast, the classic civil law approach to property, propounded
by Friedrich Carl von Savigny, is that it is a right good against the world. Obligations,
like contracts and torts are conceptualised as rights good between individuals.The
idea of property raises many further philosophical and political issues. Locke argued
that our "lives, liberties and estates" are our property because we own our bodies
and mix our labour with our surroundings.
Equity and trusts
Equity is a body of rules that developed in England separately from the "common
law". The common law was administered by judges. The Lord Chancellor on the other
hand, as the King's keeper of conscience, could overrule the judge made law if he
thought it equitable to do so. This meant equity came to operate more through principles
than rigid rules. For instance, whereas neither the common law nor civil law systems
allow people to split the ownership from the control of one piece of property, equity
allows this through an arrangement known as a 'trust'. 'Trustees' control property,
whereas the 'beneficial' (or 'equitable') ownership of trust property is held by
people known as 'beneficiaries'.
Further disciplines
Law spreads far beyond the core subjects into virtually every area of life. Three
categories are presented for convenience, though the subjects intertwine and overlap.
• Labour law is the study of a tripartite industrial relationship between worker,
employer and trade union. This involves collective bargaining regulation, and the
right to strike. Individual employment law refers to workplace rights, such as job
security, health and safety or a minimum wage.
• Human rights, civil rights and human rights law are important fields to guarantee
everyone basic freedoms and entitlements. These are laid down in codes such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights (which
founded the European Court of Human Rights) and the U.S. Bill of Rights.
• Civil procedure and criminal procedure concern the rules that courts must follow
as a trial and appeals proceed. Both concern a citizen's right to a fair trial or
hearing.
• Evidence law involves which materials are admissible in courts for a case to be
built.
• Immigration law and nationality law concern the rights of foreigners to live and
work in a nation-state that is not their own and to acquire or lose citizenship.
Both also involve the right of asylum and the problem of stateless individuals.
• Social security law refers to the rights people have to social insurance, such
as jobseekers' allowances or housing benefits.
• Family law covers marriage and divorce proceedings, the rights of children and
rights to property and money in the event of separation.
Law and commerce
• Company law sprang from the law of trusts, on the principle of separating ownership
of property and control.The law of the modern company began with the Joint Stock
Companies Act 1856, passed in the United Kingdom, which provided investors with
a simple registration procedure to gain limited liability under the separate legal
personality of the corporation.
• Commercial law covers complex contract and property law. The law of agency, insurance
law, bills of exchange, insolvency and bankruptcy law and sales law are all important,
and trace back to the mediæval Lex Mercatoria. The UK Sale of Goods Act 1979 and
the US Uniform Commercial Code are examples of codified common law commercial principles.
• Admiralty law and the Law of the Sea lay a basic framework for free trade and
commerce across the world's oceans and seas, where outside of a country's zone of
control. Shipping companies operate through ordinary principles of commercial law,
generalised for a global market. Admiralty law also encompasses specialised issues
such as salvage, maritime liens, and injuries to passengers.
• Intellectual property law aims at safeguarding creators and other producers of
intellectual goods and services. These are legal rights (copyrights, trademarks,
patents, and related rights) which result from intellectual activity in the industrial,
literary and artistic fields.
• Restitution deals with the recovery of someone else's gain, rather than compensation
for one's own loss.
• Unjust enrichment When someone has been unjustly enriched (or there is an "absence
of basis" for a transaction) at another's expense, this event generates the right
to restitution to reverse that gain.
• Tax law involves regulations that concern value added tax, corporate tax, income
tax.
• Banking law and financial regulation set minimum standards on the amounts of capital
banks must hold, and rules about best practice for investment. This is to insure
against the risk of economic crises, such as the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
• Regulation deals with the provision of public services and utilities. Water law
is one example. Especially since privatisation became popular and took management
of services away from public law, private companies doing the jobs previously controlled
by government have been bound by varying degrees of social responsibility. Energy,
gas, telecomms and water are regulated industries in most OECD countries.
• Competition law, known in the U.S. as antitrust law, is an evolving field that
traces as far back as Roman decrees against price fixing and the English restraint
of trade doctrine. Modern competition law derives from the U.S. anti-cartel and
anti-monopoly statutes (the Sherman Act and Clayton Act) of the turn of the 20th
century. It is used to control businesses who attempt to use their economic influence
to distort market prices at the expense of consumer welfare.
• Consumer law could include anything from regulations on unfair contractual terms
and clauses to directives on airline baggage insurance.
• Environmental law is increasingly important, especially in light of the Kyoto
Protocol and the potential danger of climate change. Environmental protection also
serves to penalise polluters within domestic legal systems.
Legal systems
In general, legal systems can be split between civil law and common law systems.The
term "civil law" referring to a legal system should not be confused with "civil
law" as a group of legal subjects distinct from criminal or public law. A third
type of legal system—accepted by some countries without separation of church and
state—is religious law, based on scriptures. The specific system that a country
is ruled by is often determined by its history, connections with other countries,
or its adherence to international standards. The sources that jurisdictions adopt
as authoritatively binding are the defining features of any legal system. Yet classification
is a matter of form rather than substance, since similar rules often prevail.
Civil law
Civil law is the legal system used in most countries around the world today. In
civil law the sources recognised as authoritative are, primarily, legislation—especially
codifications in constitutions or statutes passed by government—and custom.Codifications
date back millennia, with one early example being the Babylonian Codex Hammurabi.
Modern civil law systems essentially derive from the legal practice of the 6th-century
Eastern Roman Empire whose texts were rediscovered by late medieval Western Europe.
Roman law in the days of the Roman Republic and Empire was heavily procedural, and
lacked a professional legal class.[58] The United States follows the common law
system described below.
Common law and equity
Common law and equity are legal systems where decisions by courts are explicitly
acknowledged to be legal sources. The "doctrine of precedent", or stare decisis
(Latin for "to stand by decisions") means that decisions by higher courts bind lower
courts. Common law systems also rely on statutes, passed by the legislature, but
may make less of a systematic attempt to codify their laws than in a "civil law"
system. Common law originated from England and has been inherited by almost every
country once tied to the British Empire (except Malta, Scotland, the U.S. state
of Louisiana, and the Canadian province of Quebec). In medieval England, the Norman
conquest led to a unification of various tribal customs and hence a law "common"
to the whole country. The common law developed when the English monarchy had been
weakened by the enormous cost of fighting for control over large parts of France
Religious law
Religious law is explicitly based on religious precepts. Examples include the Jewish
Halakha and Islamic Sharia—both of which translate as the "path to follow"—while
Christian canon law also survives in some church communities. Often the implication
of religion for law is unalterability, because the word of God cannot be amended
or legislated against by judges or governments. However a thorough and detailed
legal system generally requires human elaboration. For instance, the Quran has some
law, and it acts as a source of further law through interpretation, Qiyas (reasoning
by analogy), Ijma (consensus) and precedent. This is mainly contained in a body
of law and jurisprudence known as Sharia and Fiqh respectively. Another example
is the Torah or Old Testament, in the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses. This contains
the basic code of Jewish law, which some Israeli communities choose to use. The
Halakha is a code of Jewish law which summarises some of the Talmud's interpretations.
Legal theory
History of law
The history of law is closely connected to the development of civilization. Ancient
Egyptian law, dating as far back as 3000 BC, contained a civil code that was probably
broken into twelve books. It was based on the concept of Ma'at, characterised by
tradition, rhetorical speech, social equality and impartiality. By the 22nd century
BC, the ancient Sumerian ruler Ur-Nammu had formulated the first law code, which
consisted of casuistic statements ("if ... then ..."). Around 1760 BC, King Hammurabi
further developed Babylonian law, by codifying and inscribing it in stone. Hammurabi
placed several copies of his law code throughout the kingdom of Babylon as stelae,
for the entire public to see; this became known as the Codex Hammurabi. The most
intact copy of these stelae was discovered in the 19th century by British Assyriologists,
and has since been fully transliterated and translated into various languages, including
English, German, and French.
Philosophy of law
The philosophy of law is commonly known as jurisprudence. Normative jurisprudence
is essentially political philosophy, and asks "what should law be?", while analytic
jurisprudence asks "what is law?". John Austin's utilitarian answer was that law
is "commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have
a habit of obedience". Natural lawyers on the other side, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
argue that law reflects essentially moral and unchangeable laws of nature. The concept
of "natural law" emerged in ancient Greek philosophy concurrently and in entanglement
with the notion of justice, and re-entered the mainstream of Western culture through
the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
Economic analysis of law
In the 18th century Adam Smith presented a philosophical foundation for explaining
the relationship between law and economics.The discipline arose partly out of a
critique of trade unions and U.S. antitrust law. The most influential proponents,
such as Richard Posner and Oliver Williamson and the so-called Chicago School of
economists and lawyers including Milton Friedman and Gary Becker, are generally
advocates of deregulation and privatisation, and are hostile to state regulation
or what they see as restrictions on the operation of free markets.
The most prominent economic analyst of law is 1991 Nobel Prize winner Ronald Coase,
whose first major article, The Nature of the Firm (1937), argued that the reason
for the existence of firms (companies, partnerships, etc.) is the existence of transaction
costs. Rational individuals trade through bilateral contracts on open markets until
the costs of transactions mean that using corporations to produce things is more
cost-effective. His second major article, The Problem of Social Cost (1960), argued
that if we lived in a world without transaction costs, people would bargain with
one another to create the same allocation of resources, regardless of the way a
court might rule in property disputes. Coase used the example of a nuisance case
named Sturges v Bridgman, where a noisy sweetmaker and a quiet doctor were neighbours
and went to court to see who should have to move.Coase said that regardless of whether
the judge ruled that the sweetmaker had to stop using his machinery, or that the
doctor had to put up with it, they could strike a mutually beneficial bargain about
who moves house that reaches the same outcome of resource distribution. Only the
existence of transaction costs may prevent this.[120] So the law ought to pre-empt
what would happen, and be guided by the most efficient solution. The idea is that
law and regulation are not as important or effective at helping people as lawyers
and government planners believe.[121] Coase and others like him wanted a change
of approach, to put the burden of proof for positive effects on a government that
was intervening in the market, by analysing the costs of action.
Sociology of law
Sociology of law is a diverse field of study that examines the interaction of law
with society and overlaps with jurisprudence, economic analysis of law and more
specialised subjects such as criminology. The institutions of social construction
and legal frameworks are the relevant areas for the discipline's inquiry. At first,
legal theorists were suspicious of the discipline. Kelsen attacked one of its founders,
Eugen Ehrlich, who sought to make distinct the differences between positive law,
which lawyers learn and apply, and other forms of 'law' or social norms that regulate
everyday life, generally preventing conflicts from reaching lawyers and courts.
Legal institutions
The main institutions of law in industrialised countries are independent courts,
representative parliaments, an accountable executive, the military and police, bureaucratic
organisation, the legal profession and civil society itself. John Locke, in his
Two Treatises of Government, and Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws,
advocated for a separation of powers between the political, legislature and executive
bodies. 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.
Max Weber and others reshaped thinking on the extension of state. Modern military,
policing and bureaucratic power over ordinary citizens' daily lives pose special
problems for accountability that earlier writers such as Locke or Montesquieu could
not have foreseen. The custom and practice of the legal profession is an important
part of people's access to justice, whilst civil society is a term used to refer
to the social institutions, communities and partnerships that form law's political
basis.
Judiciary
A judiciary is a number of judges mediating disputes to determine outcome. Most
countries have systems of appeal courts, answering up to a supreme legal authority.
In most parts of the European Union, some matters may be appealed to a transnational
court.
Some countries allow judicial authorities to overrule legislation they determine
to be unconstitutional. For example, in Brown v. Board of Education, the United
States Supreme Court nullified many state statutes that had established racially
segregated schools, finding such statutes to be incompatible with the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
A judiciary is theoretically bound by the constitution, just as all other government
bodies are. In most countries judges may only interpret the constitution and all
other laws. But in common law countries, where matters are not constitutional, the
judiciary may also create law under the doctrine of precedent. Other countries,
such as Finland and New Zealand, assert the ideal of parliamentary sovereignty,
whereby the unelected judiciary may not overturn law passed by a democratic legislature.
In communist states, such as China, the courts are often regarded as parts of the
executive, or subservient to the legislature; governmental institutions and actors
exert thus various forms of influence on the judiciary.In some Muslim countries,
courts often examine whether state laws adhere to the Sharia.
Legal profession
A corollary of the rule of law is the existence of a legal profession sufficiently
autonomous to be able to invoke the authority of the independent judiciary; the
right to assistance of an advocate in a court proceeding emanates from this corollary—in
England the function of barrister or advocate is distinguished from legal counselor
(solicitor).As the European Court of Human Rights has stated, the law should be
adequately accessible to everyone and people should be able to foresee how the law
affects them.
In order to maintain professionalism, the practice of law is typically overseen
by either a government or independent regulating body such as a bar association,
bar council or law society. Modern lawyers achieve distinct professional identity
through specified legal procedures (e.g. successfully passing a qualifying examination),
are required by law to have a special qualification (a legal education earning the
student a Bachelor of Laws, a Bachelor of Civil Law or a Juris Doctor degree[158]),
and are constituted in office by legal forms of appointment (being admitted to the
bar). Most Muslim countries have developed similar rules about legal education and
the legal profession, but some still allow lawyers with training in traditional
Islamic law to practice law before personal status law courts.In China and other
developing countries there are not sufficient professionally-trained people to staff
the existing judicial systems, and, accordingly, formal standards are more relaxed.
Once accredited, a lawyer will often work in a law firm, in a chambers as a sole
practitioner, in a government post or in a private corporation as an internal counsel.
In addition a lawyer may become a legal researcher who provides on-demand legal
research through a library, a commercial service or through freelance work. Many
people trained in law put their skills to use outside the legal field entirely.
Significant to the practice of law in the common law tradition is the legal research
to determine the current state of the law. This usually entails exploring case-law
reports, legal periodicals and legislation. Law practice also involves drafting
documents such as court pleadings, persuasive briefs, contracts, or wills and trusts.
Negotiation and dispute resolution skills (including ADR techniques) are also important
to legal practice, depending on the field.
Civil society
Classical republican concept of "civil society" dates back to Hobbes and Locke.
Locke saw civil society as people who have "a common established law and judicature
to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them." German philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel distinguished the "state" from "civil society" (burgerliche
Gesellschaft) in Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Hegel believed that civil society and the state were polar opposites, within the
scheme of his dialectic theory of history. The modern dipole state–civil society
was reproduced in the theories of Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx. Nowadays
in post-modern theory civil society is necessarily a source of law, by being the
basis from which people form opinions and lobby for what they believe law should
be. As Australian barrister and author Geoffrey Robertson QC wrote of international
law,
... one of its primary modern sources is found in the responses of ordinary men
and women, and of the non-governmental organizations which many of them support,
to the human rights abuses they see on the television screen in their living rooms.
Freedom of speech, freedom of association and many other individual rights allow
people to gather, discuss, criticise and hold to account their governments, from
which the basis of a deliberative democracy is formed. The more people are involved
with, concerned by and capable of changing how political power is exercised over
their lives, the more acceptable and legitimate the law becomes to the people. The
most familiar institutions of civil society include economic markets, profit-oriented
firms, families, trade unions, hospitals, universities, schools, charities, debating
clubs, non-governmental organisations, neighbourhoods, churches, and religious associations.
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