Reasonable personIn law, a reasonable person, reasonable man, or the man on the Clapham omnibus, is a hypothetical person of legal fiction crafted by the courts and communicated through case law and jury instructions. Strictly according to the fiction, it is misconceived for a party to seek evidence from actual people to establish how the reasonable man would have acted or what he would have foreseen. This person's character and care conduct under any common set of facts, is decided through reasoning of good practice or policy—or "learned" permitting there is a compelling consensus of public opinion—by high courts.
Law reportLaw reports or reporters are series of books that contain judicial opinions from a selection of case law decided by courts. When a particular judicial opinion is referenced, the law report series in which the opinion is printed will determine the case citation format. Historically, the term reporter was used to refer to the individual persons who actually compile, edit, and publish such opinions. For example, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States is the person authorized to publish the Court's cases in the bound volumes of the United States Reports.
Law of FranceFrench law has a dual jurisdictional system comprising private law (droit privé), also known as judicial law, and public law (droit public). Judicial law includes, in particular: Civil law (droit civil) Criminal law (droit pénale) Public law includes, in particular: Administrative law (droit administratif) Constitutional law (droit constitutionnel) Together, in practical terms, these four areas of law (civil, criminal, administrative and constitutional) constitute the major part of French law.
Primary and secondary legislationPrimary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democracies. Primary legislation generally consists of statutes, also known as 'acts', that set out broad principles and rules, but may delegate specific authority to an executive branch to make more specific laws under the aegis of the principal act.
Ultra viresUltra vires ('beyond the powers') is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act which requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is intra vires ('within the powers'). Acts that are intra vires may equivalently be termed "valid", and those that are ultra vires termed "invalid". Legal issues relating to ultra vires can arise in a variety of contexts: Companies and other legal persons sometimes have limited legal capacity to act, and attempts to engage in activities beyond their legal capacities may be ultra vires.
Swiss Civil CodeThe Swiss Civil Code (SR/RS 210, Schweizerisches Zivilgesetzbuch (ZGB); Code civil suisse (CC); Codice civile svizzero (CC); Cudesch civil svizzer) is a portion of the second part (SR/RS 2) of the internal Swiss law ("Private law - Administration of civil justice - Enforcement") that regulates the codified law ruling in Switzerland and relationship between individuals. It was first adopted in 1907 (effective since 1 January 1912).
Medieval Roman lawMedieval Roman law is the continuation and development of ancient Roman law that developed in the European Late Middle Ages. Based on the ancient text of Roman law, Corpus iuris civilis, it added many new concepts, and formed the basis of the later civil law systems that prevail in the vast majority of countries. Although some legal systems in western Europe in the Early Middle Ages, such as the Visigothic Code, retained some features of ancient Roman law, the main texts of Roman law were little known, except in the Byzantine Empire, where its Roman legal system, based on Justinian's Code, prevailed and was occasionally updated.
Germanic lawGermanic law is a scholarly term used to describe a series of commonalities between the various law codes (the Leges Barbarorum, 'laws of the barbarians', also called Leges) of the early Germanic peoples. These were compared with statements in Tacitus and Caesar as well as with high and late medieval law codes from Germany and Scandinavia. Until the 1950s, these commonalities were held to be the result of a distinct Germanic legal culture. Scholarship since then has questioned this premise and argued that many "Germanic" features instead derive from provincial Roman law.
Case citationCase citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information. A legal citation is a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position.
Jurisprudence constanteJurisprudence constante (French for "stable jurisprudence", or literally, "constant jurisprudence") is a legal doctrine according to which a long series of previous decisions applying a particular legal principle or rule is highly persuasive but not controlling in subsequent cases dealing with similar or identical issues of law. This doctrine is recognized in most civil law jurisdictions as well as in certain mixed jurisdictions, e.g., Louisiana. The rule of law applied in the jurisprudence constante directly compares with stare decisis.
