Law Papers: Law Essay Help, Law Term Paper Writing, Research Papers on Law

The law is a reflection of the values of society, and therefore needs reform as the needs and values of society change. Conditions that may lead to law reform include failure of existing laws, international law reform, and the impact of new technology. Each of these conditions impact upon societal needs and values and consequentially often give way to reform of the legal system.

Whilst reflecting the values of society, the law also has the responsibility to protect the rights of both the victim and the accused. Thus, when changes in the law occur, a balance between maintaining the rights of the accused and not abusing the rights of the victim must be sustained. At times this creates conflict, particularly when it is perceived that the rights of the accused are too extensive. Such conflict has occurred within Australia with regards to sex offender registers and how effective these registers really are in balancing the rights of the victim, the accused and the community. Read more…

The definition of good and bad can be divided into the good and the bad. Every person lives by their own ideals of what is “good” and what they think is “bad.” One ideal example of the moral vs. immoral viewpoint is outlined by the Good Samaritan Law. This law offers immunity from liability for a person if they choose to assist another in an emergency. In order for me to have come to the decision that the law ought to require people to be Good Samaritans, there were many important factors and philosophers to contemplate.

One significant deciding factor is the purpose of the law. The general basis/purpose of the law is to classify the rules of jurisprudence in their correct order, show their relation between one another, and settle the manner that new or uncertain cases should be brought under appropriate rules. There are three stances one may take in what they consider the purpose of the law to be. One may believe in legal positivism, where law is dependent upon government for its existence. Another is the idea that law reflects the beliefs of the majority. The third is the idea of true law; can law only happen if there are sanctions and is there such a thing as true law where law does not base itself on an agency or government? Legislating laws evaluates existing standards; they can be changed and/or repealed. Read more…

The Poor Law began in 1601 during the time of Elizabeth I. The aims of the poor law, according to Golding and Middleton were work, discipline, deterrence and classification. The poor law was the most important policy development dealing with poverty up until the end of the nineteenth century and it was a development, which focused in particular upon control and deterrence. In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed, it hoped to change some of the principles of the old poor law.

Previously the parishes were too small and too poor a unit to support a workhouse so the parishes were required to group together into poor law unions, with workhouses to be built in every union. An elected board of guardians ran each union. This was hoped to be a more cost-effective way of providing care for the poor. Ratepayers in each union had to elect a Board of Guardians. Guardians were elected triennially; their job was to supervise the workhouses, to collect the poor rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission. This Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country. Read more…

The scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries transformed the way Europeans viewed the natural world. Through the discoveries of men such as Copernicus and Newton, the world of thought and deliberation was for the first time accessible to all people. As a consequence of this, mankind now wanted evidence and an explanation for occurrences and ideas previously taken for granted. This era brought on not only mathematical, scientific, and technical discoveries, but also challenged certain conventional establishments. This new intellectual and investigative awareness brought on a new knowledge of man and society, and through this knowledge, threatened conventional institutions such as old traditional beliefs, religion, the legal system, and historical sciences.

As a result of this age, the world became a more understandable and logical place. Thus, there was no room left for conventional myths which were spun from the ignorance of earlier times. Formerly thought to be unfathomable phenomena, tides could now be understood and even predicated by the gravitational interaction of the moon, sun, and earth. The old belief that the universe revolved around the earth was shattered by Copernicus, who mathematically proved that it is we who are rotating around the sun. Comets, formerly thought to either discharge toxic emissions or be paranormal omens of future events, were brought out into a more realistic perspective by Bayle and his Thoughts on the Comet. Nonetheless, as effective as the revolution was in helping people open their eyes about little things, it also instigated a general skepticism of an even more trusted and time-honored institution- organized religion. Read more…

English law is based on statute but its origins and its continuing evolvement rely heavily on the doctrine of binding precedent, in order to deal with matters not covered by statute and to enable progressive development of the law. Precedent is a very important source of English law and its binding nature while not preventing development of the law, is important in providing certainty in the law.

Judicial precedent also known as judicial decision which means law made by judges when a judge makes law, the case is known as precedent. The essence of the doctrine of binding precedent is that the decisions of courts higher up the hierarchy of courts are binding upon courts lower down in the hierarchy. Future judges must stand by the decision, which is known Stare Decisis. If cases decisions are recorded and judges in later cases follow these decisions a code of conduct can be built up.

Ratio decidendi, in literally means the reasons for the particular decisions, is the statement of law on which the judge based his decision. It is part of the judgement which is capable of forming a binding precedent which means they must followed in later cases. It is important to realize that the ratio decidendi has nothing to do with the facts of the case; it is a statement of law which is carried down to later decisions. In the case of Saloman v Saloman & Co Ltd (1897), the ratio decidendi provides that where a person or persons carry on business through a company, the debts of the business are debts of the company and not of those persons. Read more…

Each society has its government, each government owes its citizens justice and each citizen owes responsibility to follow the rules of the government. The existence of numerous laws not only provides security and civilization for the society and avoids anarchy, but it also offers certain individual rights and protects the privilege of the citizens. It is true that”There are two types of laws: just and unjust.

Every individual in the society has a responsibility to obey the laws, and even more importantly, to disobey and resist just laws.” Just laws symbolize justice; unjust laws symbolize injustice. Judging whether a law is just or unjust is a social issue, and leads to a lot of controversies. However, from my individual perspective, the complexities and implications of this issue might base on the following circumstances: in human rights, in economics and in politics.
Initially, a law can be considered as just or unjust. But what is a law? And how can we assume it is just or unjust? Officially, legislators who are elected by the citizens make laws.

Legislators debate, vote on and pass hundred laws every year to enable the government to navigate the society and to satisfy the demands of its citizens. Laws are a standard for people to evaluate distinct characteristics of an action, whether it is illegal or legal. There are certain steps like a system to pass a law. During that system, people keep discussing, arguing about the pros and cons of the proposed law. Such those people that have definite influences to the content of a law may be governors, chief executives of nationwide or worldwide corporate company or citizens. Read more…

In recent years, racial profiling has become the subject of much controversy in the United States. This law enforcement tactic has come under so much scrutiny because many feel that it specifically targets minorities and violates our civil rights. However, when race is combined with other key identifying characteristics of criminal involvement, profiling is a sensible and useful technique in which police employ the laws of probability to make the best use of their scarce resources in attacking crime. As a result of the huge public outcry against this practice, many laws have been and are in the process of being enacted to make profiling illegal. In turn, this makes law enforcement’s job of protecting society from criminals, such as drug dealers, and in light of recent events, terrorists more complicated and near impossible.

Profiling is a well-known and long standing tool used by law enforcement to attempt to identify individuals involved in criminal activity. It is based on profiles or a set of coherent facts that reflect known conditions and observable behaviors associated with criminal activity. True profiling requires various factors to be considered in order for the technique to be successful. For example, in the 1970s the DEA issued a compilation of identifying characteristics of drug couriers which include nervousness; conflicting information about origin and destination among companion travelers, no luggage for a long trip, lots of cash, and lack of driver’s license or insurance. Furthermore, race and ethnicity become important identifiers when combined with other ‘suspicious’ characteristics due to past crime rate information. Read more…

Justice is one of the themes in this play, be it the family law or the public law. Both set of laws, has their own way and view of justice. Both laws have important outcomes of justice. For example, in the first part of the scene, Eddie tells Catherine how Vinny Bolzano had snitched on his uncle to the Immigration. According to the public law, justice was brought to when Vinny’s uncle got arrested as he had broken the law. But in the case of Vinny’s family and neighbors, they made Vinny got the justice he deserved by casting him out of the family and the neighbors ignoring his presence. This justice was done according to the unspoken family law, as this was seen as betraying of own family and is illegal to do so.

Justice was being mentioned, when Eddie suspects Rodolfo’s motive of liking Catherine, just to get his passport. According to Eddie, there must be a law for an illegal immigrant to fall in love with a girl and to get marry and get his citizenship. This was illegal according to Eddie’s own set of law. Besides liking Catherine, Eddie thinks that the act of Rodolfo having his hands all over Catherine and snatching her away from him was illegal. He tried to force Alferi to believe that there is a law against it, and something to go against it. This was something found in Eddie’s own set of law and justice. Alferi tried to convince Eddie that there is nothing illegal here. He stated that the law is something which allows nature to take place, like Catherine growing up, falling in love and getting married. There was nothing unnatural about this. He tried to warn Eddie not to go against something natural and the outcome of breaking the family law. As the only illegal and lawful thing, was the way how the two brothers entered the country. Justice, as in the family law, is very important here as Eddie later decided to break the justice in the family law and go with the justice in the public law. Read more…

The issue of introducing a minimum wage law seems very welcoming and at the same time, very unwelcoming. If the law is introduced, there will be a surge in the quality of lifestyle of millions of workers who are on the border line of diverging to poverty. Some other positive factors include increase in motivation of workers and elimination of unequal wages. The unwelcoming part of the law can be the increase in unemployment, increase in market prices and can eventually lead to inflation.

This is a vital issue which not only concerns minimum wage workers, but also the general public.
Introducing a minimum wage law can have positive effects on the economy and the business growth in Canada. The raise in wages of millions of workers can lead to an increase in the quality of lifestyle. The current quality of life and the status of labour workers is very disturbing. Introduction of a new minimum wage law would reduce poverty and definitely increase the quality of work. Read more…

This statement by Lord Fraser has been incorporated into Australian law since Marion’s case was decided in 1992 and rest on the presumption that parents will always act in the child’s ‘best interests’ when making decisions for the child. However, is this the case in all situations? In critical matters, are parents granted the right to make decisions for their children? What are a child’s ‘best interests’? What degree of autonomy do children have in the context of health care choices? What considerations are deemed to be relevant in a contest between the parties? This discussion paper explores these issues as well as examining what is likely to happen if a dispute comes before the Family Court under the current law in South Australia.

Who is a child?
The stipulation of what age separates childhood from adult hood is purely arbitrary. In both domestic and international law , children are those persons who have not yet achieved the age of 18 years. The Family Law Act 1975 declares that a child is a person under the age of 18 years. All other persons are deemed to be adults. Read more…