Talk:Law
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Previous discussion (mostly amoung editors no longer active in editing the article) can be found at Talk:Law/Old and Talk:Law/Old 2
As mentioned in the archived discussion pages, this article is a real mess.
It has a huge paragraph disambiguating law from physics instead of an introduction, four or so sub-articles which don't fit together and contradict each other, and then a six or so lists of links. The lists of links (legal systems, "branches" of law, and so on) get decreasingly wordy and comprehensive as the article progresses.
The opening definition of law makes the claim that law is often referred to as a "human legal code" when contrasted with physical laws and so on. According to Google, this claim is simply false. The phrase "human legal code" only appears twice on Google once Wikipedia content is excluded, and in both cases the phrase is not used as a term of art, but in some sort of discussion about the divine authorship of the Old Testament.
- is this done yet?
As someone else has suggested, jurisprudence wants its own article (and of course, already has one!), so we should get rid of that section.
- done
Law as an academic discipline is far too long for a general article about law as a social phenomenon, and the details of what your qualification is abbreviated to in Canada are totally out of place.
- done
Legal systems should probably have its own article, now that it has been reseparated from branches of law. Branches of law should be integrated instead with the huge list of legal subject areas. As "branches of law, a sampling", it even admits it's not comprehensive, which invites the question of why some subject matter areas get their own paragraph and others are relegated to the list of links in the next section.
- part done - legal systems now has own article
"Codification of law" seems like someone's attempt to put a subject heading on "law as codification", and should be at the most renamed. It manages to get in a definition of what law is, which would do better in the introduction.
- not done yet
Mk270 19:48, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Effectively, no-one has responded to this complaint, nor has anyone materially objected as some of the above recommendations were implemented. Six months having now elapsed, I propose to carry out the remainder of the recommendations. Mk270 19:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A link to Condominium law does not belong on this page, if anything it is something that should appear in an article about real property, and then if the content merits a separate page that page should be written. I will leave this comment here for a few days, if no one objects I will remove the sentence of condo law to the real property page. Alex756 15:19, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Probably not on this page, agreed, but it could go under property (or real estate) law, which doens't seem to have a link. I am afraid condo law may degenerate into condo rules not actual law, if careful distinction isn't made. But there is still enough law about condos for an article. Rmhermen 16:00, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I feel somewhat guilt about neglecting this article. It seems to have deteriorated considerably. I note the following:
"In ethics and moral philosophy this type of law is often called a "human legal code" to distinguish it from more fundamental laws applicable to all beings (metaphysics, ontology). Such a body of laws can be seen as a legally-enforced ethical code or as a "secular moral code" (to the degree that political leaders replace religious leaders as moral examples)"
It is a commonplace that many laws have only a regulative content and are essentially divorced from both ethics and morals (although a moral and ethical duty to obey the law remains).
I note also the development of a jurisprudence section which probably should be moved and developed at jurisprudence. Fred Bauder 14:14, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Back in April a user called Shino Baku (or similar) initiated a series of
edits, one of whose effects was to combine the section on legal systems
with that on "branches" of law. One of the effects of this was to conflate
the various meanings of "civil law" (as a legal system and as a body of
law within particular legal systems). At any rate, the user in question was
subsequently accused of being some sort of troublemaker and his/her account
suspended, and I'd like to now propose the reversal of his/her unannounced
major change to the article, and remove the conflation of legal systems and
"branches" of law. Mk270 09:08, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)~
- I remember interacting with User:Shino Baku and finding the questions and reasoning that were being put forth by this user to be confused and confusing. I think straightening this out is a good idea and I thought about that too, but did not want to seem to autocratic about it being just one person making the suggestion. SB also made a bunch of other edits to law related articles that were problematic. Alex756 00:31, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Of course, we should prefer "the change was a bad one" to "the change was made by a bad user" as our reason for reversal. My reasons would be that legal systems and areas of law are effectively orthogonal: the legal system of each country will probably cover each of these areas of law; if the "branches of law" list went Employment Law, English Law, French Law, Land Law, US Federal Law, it would be patently ridiculous. To a limited extent, the notion of law being both all-encompassing and simultaneously compartmentalisable into discrete units as "branches", differentiated by subject matter, is not strictly neutral as between different legal traditions: most uncodified common law legal systems would not have such pretensions ... but at least this offsets the Anglocentrism of the rest of the article!
At any rate, reverting to the status quo ante the Shino Baku change would be a major reorganisation, and one which perhaps ought to be done in combination with a shakedown between the current competition between "law" and "the law" in the article. Mk270 18:12, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
There having been no objection here for three months, I have carried out the proposed change, separating legal systems from "branches" of law. Mk270 19:00, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)~
See Mediawiki:law to edit the law sidebar. -SV(talk) 08:55, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I removed the following two external links as they were not about the broader subject of law. --Zigger 01:49, 2004 Jun 6 (UTC)
TO long should we put a notice on wikipedia main page ? Paladine
Definitions in the mess
I agree that this article just isn't well. I have been reading some of the equivalent articles in other Wikipedias (in other languages) and they seem much better.
This article should start by saying that one of the problems in law is that nobody agrees on how to define it.
It would be hepful to put here a collection of different definitions of law by different authors. Perhaps starting with Ulpian...
Another important point would be to make a distinction between an «external» and an «internal» (following Herbert_Hart; but other words could be used) perspective about law. The former one is «sociological» (there we talk about a kind of interactions and social processes), the latter is «legal» (here we say, for instance, that law is a set of norms). These are really different things. Law sociologists and lawyers don't talk about the same when they say «law».
- Well, I'm not sure I'd start with Ulpian, and certainly not with Gaius ;), but this page does need a much better structure. A look at the German and Dutch pages on Law is instructive. These people are basically writing about a Germanic or Romanistic conception of law, which purportedly affords easy categories around which to structure the article, so I guess they have a head start. More importantly, German wikipedia has these portals, and so all those lists of this and lists of that which make up so much of the English article are not present, simplifying the picture. I think they should be split off in the English page too.
Mk270 19:23, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Litigation?
I find it somewhat disturbing that in this article, the word "litigation" does not appear. I'm sure it has a place somewhere in this article, as it has a fundamental place in the law. After some digging around, I've found that Wikipedia redirects queries about "litigation" to "civil law". I know the list of areas of law is not comprehensive, but it would be beneficial to anyone who is reading the article to be able to quickly associate litigation with civil law. Can anyone find a comfortable niche for the word, or supply an adequate reason for its absence? Thanks! Zephlon 20:38, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Notable law firm?
There is currently an interesting VfD going on in relation to a 60-lawyer law firm. What is at stake is whether this law firm is notable. Your opinion is welcome, here. Thanks. --Edcolins 09:15, May 29, 2005 (UTC)