An important foundational issue in the law is the question of jurisdiction Jurisdiction is about a court’s power to hear a case. Questions and doctrines related to jurisdiction are especially developed in the United States where there are a host of rules in this respect. This will therefore be the focus of this lesson. Subject …
In this post, we provide a brief overview of the United Kingdom’s court system. What you see below is a simplified overview of the main courts and their hierarchies. The details of how which court hears which cases and appeals are far more complex, but for now let’s focus on the basic structure. At the …
This post provides a brief explanation and overview of the United States court system. US Court System: Overview At the very top of the court system we have the US Supreme Court. Below the Supreme Court, there are two separate court systems: federal and state. The lowest federal courts are the US district courts. There …
We discuss elsewhere the nature and characteristics of law, as well as the sources of law, we are now ready to familiarize ourselves with different branches within the law. Public Law and Private Law On a very fundamental level, law can be divided into public law and private law. Public law is concerned with matters …
Classification of Law: Public vs Private Law, Criminal vs Civil Law Read More »
There are two basic sources of law: Positive law and common law. We will look at both in turn, starting with positive law or positive laws. Positive Laws Historically, the term ‘positive law’ was meant to distinguish human-made laws – positive laws – from “natural laws”. One of the scholars that argued in favour of …
Sources of Law: Positive Laws, Common Law, and Statutory Interpretation Read More »
We discussed elsewhere what “law” is or how we can construct a helpful definition of law. A related question to discuss in this post is why do we need laws or law in the first place. What does law achieve, and could we not simply live our lives, and run businesses, based on customs and …
Let’s have a look at the very basic, but fundamental, question of ‘what is law’. In the following, we seek a definition of law and the nature of ‘the law’. Ethics and Morality A natural starting point for doing so is to look at the concepts of ethics and morality. Certainly, what we as a …
A crucial topic in contract law are remedies. If one party breaches a contract, then the non-breaching party is entitled to enforce it. There are two basic types of remedies that courts can grant: The first and more common type are damages, that is monetary compensation. The second type are equitable remedies. Damages Damages are …
Sometimes performance of a contractual obligation may be contingent upon the occurrence of a condition. Including a condition in a contract may also help regulate when performance is due. There are distinct types of conditions. Concurrent Conditions The first type are concurrent conditions. Here, both contractual promises are to be performed at the same time. …
We said previously that any non-performance by one of the parties amounts to a breach of the contract. While this is of course true in most cases, there are certain exceptions to the general rule. Namely, it is possible that non-performance is not the fault of a party but rather based on a change in …