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Positive Law - Law Dictionary Search Results

Positive law

Positive law. A rule of conduct enforced by sovereign sanction, Consult Austin's Jurisprudence and Maine's History of Law. See MALA PROHIBITA; LAW....

positive law

positive law : law established or recognized by governmental authority compare natural law ...

Law

Law [fr. lage, lagea, or lah, Sax.; loi, Fr.; legge, Ital.; lex, fr. ligo, Lat., to bind], a rule of action to which men are obliged to make their conduct conformable. A command, enforced by some sanction, to acts or forbearances of a class: see Austin's Jurisprudence; 1 Bl. Com. 38. A principle of conduct may be observed habitually by an individual or a class. When sufficiently formulated or defined to be observed uniformly by the whole of a class it may become a custom; or it may be imposed on all individuals who consent or are unable to resist its application and the sanction or penalty which is imposed for non-compliance, and in that case it becomes a law. If, in addition, the law and its sanction are imposed by, or by authority of a sovereign, the law becomes 'positive' (see Austin's Jurisprudence). Short of positive law the principle may be called a moral or social law. Generally speaking, jurisprudence is concerned only with positive law, and law in its ordinary legal sense mean...

Just

Just, the expression 'just' denotes equitability, fairness and reasonableness, and non arbitrary. If it is not so it cannot be just (See Helen C. Rebello v. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation, AIR 1998 SC 3191), Divisional Controller KSTRC v. Mahadeva Shetty, AIR 2003 SC 4172 (4177): (2003) 7 SCC 197. (Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, s. 163A and Schedule II)The word 'just' as its nomenclature, denotes equit-ability, fairness and reasonableness having large peripheral field. The largeness is, of course, not arbitrary; it is restricted by the conscience which is fair, reasonable and equitable, if it exceeds; it is termed as unfair, unreasonable, inequitable not just. In Law Lexicon, 5th Edn., by T.P. Mukherjee 'Just' is described:The term just' is derived from the latin word Justus. It has various meanings and its meaning is often governed by the context. 'Just' may apply in nearly all of its senses, either to ethics or law, denoting something which is morally right and fair and some...

Equity

Equity [fr. 'quitas, Lat.] There is some confusion as to the meaning of Equity; as a scheme of jurispru-dence distinct from Law 'Equity' is an equivocal term; the difficulty lies in drawing the dividing lines between the several senses in which it is used. They may be distinguished thus:-(1) Taken broadly and philosophically, Equity means to do to all men as we would they should do unto us-by the Justinian Pandects, honeste vivere, alterum non l'dere, suum cuique tribuere. It is clear that human tribunals cannot cope with so wide a range or duties.(2) Taken in a less universal sense, Equity is used in contradistinction to strict law. This is Moral Equity, which should be the genius of every kind of human jurisprudence; since it expounds and limits the language of the positive laws, and construes them not according to their strict letter, but rather in their reasonable and benignant spirit.Aristotle, in his discussion concerning Moral Equity, Ethics Eud., b.v., c. x, calls it the correc...

Jus

Jus, law, right, equity, authority, and rule.A Roman 'magistratus' generally did not investigate the facts in dispute in such matters as were brought before him; he appointed a judex for that purpose, and gave him instructions. Accordingly, the whole procedure was expressed by the two phrases Jus and Judicium; of which the former comprehended all that took place before the magistratus (in jure), and the latter all that took place before the judex (in judicio). Originally, even the magistratus was called judex, as, for instance, the consul and pr'tor (Liv. iii. 55); and under the empire the term 'judex' often designated the pr'ses, Smith's Dict. of Antiq.All law jus) is distributed into two parts--Jus Gentium and Jus Civile--and the whole body of law peculiar to any state is its Jus Civile (Cic. De Orat. I. 44). The Roman Law, therefore, which is peculiar to the Roman state, is its Jus Civile, sometimes called Jus Civile Romanorum, but more frequently designated by the term Jus Civile o...

Status

Status. The legal position or condition of a person. in Roman law this term indicated the position of a persona. A full Roman citizen must have possessed the status liberatatis, famili', and civitatis, which are sometimes called tria capita. See Sandars' Justinian; Mackenzie's Roman Law, 4th Edn. p. 81. The law of status thus classified men as slaves and free, citizens and aliens-as equals and unequals, so that it may be called the law of inequality. Much in the same way the term 'status' is used at the pesent time in connection with the law of persons, in which connection it signifies some disability or special right or treatment by the law.In Scotland, with few exceptions, actions affecting status must be brought in the Court of Session.Status determines a person's legal condition in community by reference to some legal calls or group and cannot normally be voluntarily changed. The imposition of status carries with it attribution of a fixed quota of capacity and incapacities, but it ...

natural law

natural law : a body of law or a specific principle of law that is held to be derived from nature and binding upon human society in the absence of or in addition to positive law NOTE: While natural law, based on a notion of timeless order, does not receive as much credence as it did formerly, it was an important influence on the enumeration of natural rights by Thomas Jefferson and others. ...

Mala prohibita

Mala prohibita, wrongs which are prohibited by human laws, but are not necessarily mala in se, or wrongs in themselves, e.g., contraventions of the Shops Acts; breaches of positive law, 4 Steph.Com....

Mahr (dower)

Mahr (dower), Mahr (dower) is neither dowry nor price for marriage: As explained in an old judgment by Justice Syed Mahmood, maher is 'not the exchange or consideration given by the man to the woman, but an effect of the contract imposed by law on the husband as a token of respect for its subject: the Woman'. Giving a correct appraisal of the concept of maher, the Privy Council once described it as 'an essential incident to the status of marriage'. On another occasion it explained that maher was a 'legal responsibility' of the husband. These judicial observations evidence a correct understanding of the Islamic legal concept of maher. Its substitute, a valid retirement, or by death, which by terminating the marriage, puts an end to all the contingencies to which it is exposed; and on the other hand the woman becomes entitled to it as soon as she has surrendered her person. Justice Mahmood has described the nature of mahr in Abdul Kadir Salima. According to him: Dower (mahr), under the M...

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