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Lists of case law cover instances of case law, legal decisions in which the law was analyzed to resolve ambiguities for deciding current cases. They are organized alphabetically, by topic or by country.
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Lists of case law cover instances of case law, legal decisions in which the law was analyzed to resolve ambiguities for deciding current cases. They are organized alphabetically, by topic or by country.
These lists are pan-jurisdictional.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to law:
Precedent is a principle or rule established in a legal case that becomes authoritative to a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar legal issues or facts. The legal doctrine stating that courts should follow precedent is stare decisis.
The United Kingdom has three distinctly different legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007, calls for a fourth type, that of purely Welsh law as a result of Welsh devolution, with further calls for a Welsh justice system.
The Court of Appeal is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Court of Appeal was created in 1875, and today comprises 39 Lord Justices of Appeal and Lady Justices of Appeal.
The Practice Statement [1966] 3 All ER 77 was a statement made in the House of Lords by Lord Gardiner LC on 26 July 1966 on behalf of himself and the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, that they would depart from precedent in the Lords in order to achieve justice.
Robin Brunskill Cooke, Baron Cooke of Thorndon, was a New Zealand judge and later a British Law Lord and member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He is widely considered one of New Zealand's most influential jurists, and is the only New Zealand judge to have sat in the House of Lords. He was a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong from 1997 to 2006.
In law, an en banc session is when all the judges of a court sit to hear a case, not just one judge or a smaller panel of judges. For courts like the United States Courts of Appeals in which each case is heard by a three-judge panel instead of the entire court, en banc review is usually used only for unusually complex or important cases or when the court believes there is an especially significant issue at stake. En banc is a French phrase meaning "in bench".
Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly used in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth jurisdictions instead of "landmark case", as used in the United States.
Case 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.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom's highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
In forma pauperis is a Latin legal term meaning "in the character or manner of a pauper". It refers to the ability of an indigent person to proceed in court without payment of the usual fees associated with a lawsuit or appeal.
In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision.
Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211 (1995), was a landmark case about separation of powers in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Congress may not retroactively require federal courts to reopen final judgments. Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia asserted that such action amounted to an unauthorized encroachment by Congress upon the powers of the judiciary and therefore violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers.
Judicial review is a process under which a government's executive, legislative, or administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. In a judicial review, a court may invalidate laws, acts, or governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority. For example, an executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful, or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers—the power of the judiciary to supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305 (2010), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court concerning whether Muhammad Ali Samatar, prime minister of Somalia from 1987 to 1990, could be sued in United States courts for allegedly overseeing killings and other atrocities. Samatar then lived in Virginia, and some of his victims had sued him under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991.
Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies. It also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law or by precedent. Changes to the constitution typically require a supermajority, often two thirds of votes instead of one half.
Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174 (1922), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court unanimously held that public schools could constitutionally exclude unvaccinated students from attending, even if there was not an ongoing outbreak. In the case, the school district of San Antonio, Texas enacted an ordinance that prohibited any child from attending a school within the district unless they had been vaccinated against smallpox. One parent of a student who had been excluded, Rosalyn Zucht, sued on the basis that there was not a public health emergency. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote for the unanimous court that requiring students to be vaccinated was a justified use of "police power" to maintain public health and safety.
Landmark cases may refer to:
