A system of law promulgated and implemented within a particular political community by political superiors, as distinct from moral law or law existing in an ideal community or in some nonpolitical community. • Positive law typically consists of enacted law — the codes, statutes, and regulations that are applied and enforced in the courts. The […]
assize utrum (yoo-tr[schwa]m). [Latin] Hist. A writ to determine whether land claimed by a church was held by lay or spiritual tenure. • This writ is named after its emphatic word, which required the fact-finder to determine whether (utrum) the land belonged to the church. — Also termed (erroneously) assize of utrum; assize de utrum.
positive law. A system of law promulgated and implemented within a particular political community by political superiors, as distinct from moral law or law existing in an ideal community or in some nonpolitical community. • Positive law typically consists of enacted law — the codes, statutes, and regulations that are applied and enforced in the
judicial activism, n. A philosophy of judicial decision-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions, usu. with the suggestion that adherents of this philosophy tend to find constitutional violations and are willing to ignore precedent. Cf. JUDICIAL RESTRAINT(3). — judicial activist, n. “[I]f to resolve the
circuit-riding, n. The practice of judges’ traveling within a legislatively defined circuit to hear cases in one place for a time, then another, and so on. • The American practice of circuit-riding was based on the English eyre system, in which justices rode between the shire towns to hold assizes. “The Judiciary Act of 1789
religion. A system of faith and worship usu. involving belief in a supreme being and usu. containing a moral or ethical code; esp., such a system recognized and practiced by a particular church, sect, or denomination. • In construing the protections under the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, courts have interpreted the term
misappropriation, n. 1. The application of another’s property or money dishonestly to one’s own use. See EMBEZZLEMENT. Cf. APPROPRIATION; EXPROPRIATION. 2. Intellectual property. The common-law tort of using the noncopyrightable information or ideas that an organization collects and disseminates for a profit to compete unfairly against that organization, or copying a work whose creator has
Atlantic Reporter. A set of regional lawbooks, part of the West Group’s National Reporter System, containing every published appellate decision from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont, as well as the decisions of the District of Columbia Municipal Court of Appeals, from 1885 to date. • The first
Vaughn index. A comprehensive list of all documents that the government wants to shield from disclosure in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, each document being accompanied by a statement of justification for nondisclosure. • Supported by one or more affidavits, a Vaughn index has three purposes: (1) forcing the government to scrutinize all material
legal ethics. 1. The minimum standards of appropriate conduct within the legal profession, involving the duties that its members owe one another, their clients, and the courts. — Also termed etiquette of the profession. 2. The study or observance of those duties. 3. The written regulations governing those duties. See MODEL RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT.