Legal definitions in the United States When trying to learn about and understand law, one of the most important aspects of it is the legal definition of a word. Is there a source in which the courts refer to when looking to define a word? If there is, what is it?
Courts look to primary authority first, and then to secondary authority if ambiguity remains. Primary Authority providing definition for the legal use of a word would be previous case opinions that give meaning to a word in a given context, how the word is actually defined in the statutes for the state, or, in the case of federal law, the federal statutes or Code of Federal Regulations. Within primary sources, you also consider whether a prior definition is binding on the court (i.e., the court has to follow it) or whether it is merely persuasive authority (that the court can choose to follow, but is not required to follow based on precedent &ndash; sometimes call Stare Decisis). Primary authority is binding on a court if the definition comes from a higher court in the direct appellate chain of the deciding court, it is persuasive otherwise. Secondary Authority is everything else. For example, Black's Law Dictionary, Whigmore on Evidence, or any other legal treatise would also be a secondary source. (All secondary authority is persuasive authority.) Courts, in absence of either, will look to how a word is commonly used in the context in which it is applied. All seek to give the proper meaning to a word or phrase in light of how it is being used.
(d) a place to which the public have access, whether as of right or not Be that broad or not, it applies to airport car parks. Would I be wasting my time trying to argue this in court? Pretty much.
That book provides advice on legal writing; it is not a source of rules for legal writing. Rather than repeatedly identifying themselves using their full name, parties customarily refer to themselves in the third person, e.g., &quot;The defendant refused to waive his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.&quot; In practice, though, pro se litigants regularly refer to themselves in the first person, and there is no formal consequence for this.
1. Are this and similar ordinances constitutionally valid? Yes. Some future court might decide the law is invalid at some future time. But that possibility is hypothetical and speculative. Therefore, as of now, the law is valid unless and until it is challenged and overturned. 2. What defenses could a government make if challenged? It depends on what grounds the law is challenged. Your question about possible defenses is highly dependent on the nature of any challenge — which you have not specified in your question. The U.S. Constitution, for example, prohibits laws respecting a number of things such as freedom of the press, speech, religion, peaceful assembly, bearing arms, etc. to list just a few of the most notable ones. But your question does not assert the law in question violates any specific or particular prohibition against it. Although the question mentions "restricting free movement as well as targeting only a specific demographic," it does not specify any part of any constitution that prohibits these things. Therefore, your question is unclear as to what might present a constitutional problem for the law. It is also unclear which constitution you think might contain prohibitive language. Is it a federal constitutional issue that concerns you? Or is it a state constitutional matter? In either case, which issue specifically concerns you? Your question needs to address these specifics in order to analyze it and respond in a meaningful way. Look at it like this... just as it is impossible to prove a negative, so is it impossible for anyone to conclude with absolute certainty that any law is not unconstitutional because no one can predict with certainty every possible future challenge a law might face. There are just too many possibilities to (pre-emptively) exhaust them all with certainty. Also, no one can predict with certainty how any future court might rule on the future challenges (which themselves are unpredictable as previously argued). Therefore, one can only say I think the law is unconstitutional and here are my reasons. Then others can analyze the law and the reasons; then offer an opinion. Further, based on precedent, would they likely be successful? See above answer to question numbered 2. Laws aren't required to be "justified" by the constitution. Constitutional justification for a law is a meaningless phrase. There is no requirement for a law to be "justified" by any constitution other than that the legislature is empowered by the constitution to make laws. That's all the justification any law needs. Beyond that, however, no law can violate the constitution as determined by a Supreme Court (or the last court to rule) if challenged.
&quot;Codes&quot; are usually collections of previously existing laws. The Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Justinian were both collections of laws, gathered for easy reference. In the US, the US Code (USC) is an almost comprehensive collection of current law, much of which was passed in separate statutes before it was codified. In this contest, to codify is to include a law in the code, altering formatting and numbering to make it consistent with the rest of the code. Laws in the US are normally passed and go into effect before they are codified. In modern usage &quot;code&quot; is not normally used for a single law. There is also the US Code of Federal Regulations or CFR which is a collection of regulations passed by various federal agencies to implement law. They are not laws, but in many respects thy have the force of law. I believe that several other legal systems use &quot;code&quot; or a word that might be translated as &quot;code&quot; in a similar way. In a wider sense, &quot;code&quot; can be used to refer to an entire system of law, as &quot;the Mosaic code&quot; or &quot;the Anglo-American code&quot;. It can also be used for the precepts of a non-legsal system as &quot;an ethical code&quot; or &quot;the architect's code of practice&quot;. A bill is a proposed law not yet passed by a legislature. In modern US usage, codes only include statutes passed by legislatures, not constitutions. This is because codes collect the work of legislatures, but written constitutions come from different and special sources. The term &quot;act&quot;, in modern usage, is a synonym for &quot;statute&quot;. In historic usage not all acts were statutes, only those important enough to be routinely quoted verbatim, not paraphrased.
You are deeply confused, probably by the blogs of a conspiracy theorist (perhaps discussing the Sovereign Citizen Movement mentioned in the comments), whom it would be helpful for you to reference. In fact, people with and without lawyers claim common law rights in the ordinary courts of the UK every day, in the lion's share of civil lawsuits. For example: There is a common law right to sue for damages when someone breaches a contract by not paying a bill that they owe. A defendant, meanwhile, has a common law right to defend against such a suit on grounds, for example, that the debt has been paid or that the debt is not owed because there was no agreement to pay in the first place. The substantive right of an owner of real property to evict a tenant who breaches a lease arises at common law, even though statutes spell out the process for enforcing that right. Furthermore, the way that ownership of real property is established (i.e. through a chain of title involving purchases by deeds) likewise arises at common law. The defendant meanwhile has a common law defense to a claim for rent for the remainder of the period in a lease after an eviction for failure of the landlord to mitigate damages if the landlord does not make a reasonable effort to find a new tenant. The right to sue someone who negligently caused an accident that injured you is a common law right.
In the US, Congress may pass an act, and this creates one kind of law (if it is promulgated: signed, ignored, or re-passed with a super-majority). Some of those acts direct the executive branch to do things, and pursuant to that act, a regulation is promulgated. Together with case law, the whole thing is "law". A bill (in the House, or the Senate) may result in an act being passed by both houses. It may go through a number of drafts between the point when it is first introduced and the time it becomes an act.
Jurisdiction the authority of a court or official organization to make decisions and judgments A body that acts within the scope of its jurisdiction can expect that its actions will be upheld by the courts - whether that body is the US Congress or a local softball club.