KFLCC Kingdom Law 2nd Ed.

701

LAW

LAW

Many statutes are classed under one of the divisions above mentioned because they have merely modified or extended portions of it, while others have created altogether new rules. That part of the law which is derived from custom is sometimes called the "cus tomary law," as to which, see CUSTOM. Sweet. The earliest notion of law was not an enumer ation of a principle, but a judgment in a par ticular case. When pronounced in the early ages, by a king, it was assumed to be the result of direct divine inspiration. Afterwards came the notion of a custom which a judgment affirms, or punishes its breach. In the outset, however, the only authoritative statement of right and wrong is a judicial sentence render ed after the fact has occurred. It does not pre suppose a law to have been violated, but is en acted for the first time by a higher form into the judge's mind at the moment of adjudica tion. Maine, Anc Law, (Dwight's Ed.) pp. xv, 5. Synonyms and distinctions. According to the usage in the United States, the name "constitution" is commonly given to the organic or fundamental law of a state, and the term "law" is used in contradistinction to the former, to denote a statute or en actment of the legislative body. "Law," as distinguished from "equity," denotes the doctrine and procedure of the common law of England and America, from which equity is a departure. The term is also used in opposition to "fact." Thus questions of law are to be de cided by the court, while it is the province of the jury to solve questions of fact. Classification. With reference to its subject-matter, law is either public or pri vate. Public law is that part of the law which deals with the state, either by itself or in its relations with individuals, and is divided into (1) constitutional law; (2) ad ministrative law; (3) criminal law; (4) crim inal procedure; (5) the law of the state con sidered in its quasi private personality; (6) the procedure relating to the state as so con sidered. Holl. Jur. 300. Law is also divided into substantive and adjective. Substantive law is that part of the law which creates rights and obligations, while adjective law provides a method of en forcing and protecting them. In other words, adjective law is the law of procedure. Holl. Jur. 61, 238. The ordinary, but not very useful, division of law into written and unwritten rests on the same principle. The written law is the statute law; the unwritten law is the com mon law, (a. v.) 1 Steph. Coram. 40, fol lowing Blackstone. Kinds of statutes. Statutes are called "general" or "public" when they affect the community at large; and local or special when their operation is confined to a limited region, or particular class or interest. Statutes are also either prospective or re trospective; the former, when they are in

tended to operate upon future cases only; the latter, when they may also embrace transactions occurring before their passage. Statutes are called "enabling" when they confer new powers; "remedial" when their effect is to provide relief or reform abuses; "penal" when they impose punishment, pe cuniary or corporal, for a violation of their provisions. 5. In old English jurisprudence, "law" Is used to signify an oath, or the privilege of being sworn; as in the phrases "to wage one's law," "to lose one's law." —•Absolute law. The true and proper law of nature, immutable in the abstract or in principle, in theory, but not in application; for very often the object, the reason, situa tion, and other circumstances, may vary its exercise and obligation. 1 Steph. Comm. 21 et seq. — Foreign laws. The laws of a foreign country, or of a sister state. People v. Martin, 38 Misc. Rep. 67, 76 N. Y. Supp. 953; Bank of Chillicothe v. Dodge, 8 Barb. (N. Y.) 233. For eign laws are often the suggesting occasions of changes in, or additions to, our own laws, and in that respect are called "jus receptum." Brown.— General law. A general law as con tradistinguished from one that is special or lo cal, is a law that embraces a class of subjects or places, and does not omit any subject or place naturally belonging to such class. Van Riper v. Parsons, 40 N. J. Law, 1; Mathis v. Jones, 84 Ga. 804, 11 S. E. 1018; Brooks v. Hyde, 37 Cal. 376; Arms v. Ayer, 192 111. 601, 61 N. E. 851, 58 L. R. A. 277, 85 Am. St. Rep. 357; State v. Davis, 55 Ohio St. 15, 44 N. E. 511. A law, framed in general terms, restricted to no locality, and operating equally upon all of a group of objects, which, having regard to the purposes of the legislation, are distinguished by characteristics sufficiently marked and im portant to make them a class by themselves, is not a special or local law, but a general law. Van Riper v. Parsons, 40 N. J. Law, 123, 29 Am. Rep. 210. A special law is one relating to particular persons or things; one made for individual cases or for particular places or dis tricts ; one operating upon a selected class, rather than upon the public generally. Ewing v. Hoblitzelle, 85 Mo. 78; State v. Irwin, 5 Nev. 120; Sargent v. Union School Dist., 63 N. H. 528, 2 Atl. 641; Earle v. Board of Edu cation, 55 Cal. 489; Dundee Mortgage, etc.. Co. v. School Dist. (C. C.) 21 Fed. 158.— Law agents. Solicitors practicing in the Scotch courts.— Law arbitrary. Opposed to immut able, a law not founded in the nature of things, but imposed by the mere will of the legislature. -Law burrows. In Scotch law. Security for the peaceable behavior of a party; security to keep the peace. Properly, a process for ob taining such security. 1 Forb. Inst. pt. 2, p. 198.— Law charges. This phrase is used, un der the Louisiana Civil Code, to signify costs incurredin court in the prosecution of a suit, to be paid by the party cast. Rousseau v v «His Creditors. 17 La. 206; Barkley v. His Credit ors, 11 Rob. (La.) ' 28.— Law eourt of ap peals. In American law. An appellate tri bunal, formerly existing in the state of South Carolina, for hearing appeals, from the courts of law.— Law day. See DAY.— Law French. The Norman French language, introduced into England by William the Conqueror, and which, for several centuries, was, in an emphatic sense, the language of the English law, being that in which the proceedings of the* courts and of parliament were carried on, and in which many of the ancient statutes, reports, abridgments, and treatises were written and printed. It is called by Blackstone a "bar barous dialect," and the later specimens of it