Legality, in respect of an act, agreement, or contract is the state of being consistent with the law or of being lawful or unlawful in a given jurisdiction, and the construct of power.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, legality is 1 : attachment to or observance of law. 2 : the quality or state of being legal Businessdictionary.com, thelawdictionary.org, and mylawdictionary.org definition explains concept of ''attachment to law'' as ''Implied warranty that an act, agreement, or contract strictly adheres to the statutes of a particular jurisdiction. For example, in insurance contracts it is assumed that all risks covered under the policy are legal ventures.'' The second definition cited by Businessdictionary.com, the ''Legal principle that an accused may not be prosecuted for an act that is not declared a crime in that jurisdiction'' is actually about the Principle of legality which is part of the overall concept of legality.
Definitions
Vicki Schultz states that we collectively have a shared knowledge about most concepts. How we interpret the reality of our actual understanding of a concept manifests itself through the different individual narratives that we tell about the origins and meanings of a particular concept. The difference in narratives, about the same set of facts, is what divides us. An individual has the ability to frame, or understand, something very differently than the next person. Evidence does not always lead to a clear attribution of the specific cause or meaning of an issue – meanings are derived through narratives. Reality, and the facts that surround it, are personally subjective and laden with assumptions based on clearly stated facts. Anna-Maria Marshall states, this shift in framing happens because our perceptions depend “on new information and experiences;” this very idea is the basis of Ewick and Sibley definition of legality – our everyday experiences shape our understanding of the law.
Ewik and Silbey define "legality" more broadly as, ''those meanings, sources of authority, and cultural practices that are in some sense legal although not necessarily approved or acknowledged by official law. The concept of legality the opportunity to consider "how where and with what effect law is produced in and through commonplace social interactions....How do our roles and statuses our relationships, our obligations, prerogatives and responsibilities, our identities and our behavoiurs bear the imprint of law.''
In a paper on ''Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality'', legality is defined taking the state's role in to account as, ''The system of laws and regulations of right and wrong behavior that are enforceable by the state (federal, state, or local governmental body in the U.S.) through the exercise of its policing powers and judicial process, with the threat and use of penalties,
including its monopoly on the right to use physical violence.''
Other related concepts
Rule of law provides for availability of rules, laws and legal mechanism to implement them. Principle of legality checks for availability and quality of the laws. Legality checks for if certain behaviour is according to law or not. concept of Legitimacy of law looks for fairness or acceptability of fairness of process of implementation of law.
quality of being legal and observance to the law may pertain to lawfullness, i.e. being consistent to the law or it may get discussed in principle of legality or may be discussed as legal legitimacy.
Legality of purpose
In contract law, legality of purpose is required of every enforceable contract. One can not validate or enforce a contract to do activity with unlawful purpose.
Constitutional legality
The principle of legality can be affected in different ways by different constitutional models. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, laws may not violate the stated provisions of the United States Constitution which includes a prohibition on retrospective laws. In
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
under the doctrine of
Parliamentary sovereignty
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 al ...
, the legislature can (in theory) pass such retrospective laws as it sees fit, though article 7 of the European convention on human rights, which has legal force in Britain, forbids conviction for a crime which was not illegal at the time it was committed. Article 7 has already had an effect in a number of cases in the British courts.
In contrast many written constitutions prohibit the creation of
retroactive
Retroactive may refer to:
* ''Retroactive'' (album), an album by Grand Puba
* ''Retro-active'', an album by Karizma
* '' Retro Active'', an album by Def Leppard
* ''Retroactive'' (film), a 1997 movie starring James Belushi and Kylie Travis
See ...
(normally criminal) laws. However the possibility of statutes being struck down creates its own problems. It is clearly more difficult to ascertain what is a valid statute when any number of statutes may have constitutional question marks hanging over them. When a statute is declared unconstitutional, the actions of public authorities and private individuals which were legal under the invalidated statute, are retrospectively tainted with illegality. Such a result could not occur under parliamentary sovereignty (or at least not before Factortame) as a statute was law and its validity could not be questioned in any court.
International law
Legality, in its criminal aspect, is a principle of
international human rights law
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, a ...
, and is incorporated into the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freed ...
and the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
. However the imposition of penalties for offences illegal under
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
or criminal according to "the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations" are normally excluded from its ambit. As such the trial and punishment for
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the L ...
, war crimes and crimes against humanity does not breach international law.
There is some debate about whether this is really a true exception or not. Some people would argue that it is a derogation or – perhaps somewhat more harshly – an infringement of the principle of legality. While others would argue that crimes such as genocide are contrary to
natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacted ...
and as such are always illegal and always have been. Thus imposing punishment for them is always legitimate. The exception and the natural law justification for it can be seen as an attempt to justify the
Nuremberg trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded ...
and the trial of
Adolf Eichmann
Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann" '' territorial principle, generally confining national jurisdiction to a nation’s borders, has been expanded to accommodate extraterritorial,
national interest
The national interest is a sovereign state's goals and ambitions (economic, military, cultural, or otherwise), taken to be the aim of government.
Etymology
The Italian phrase ''ragione degli stati'' was first used by Giovanni della Casa around ...
.
In criminal law, the principle of legality assures the primacy of law in all criminal proceedings.
Bibliography
* Kelsen, Hans. ''General Theory of Law and State'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, c1945) (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 1949) (New York : Russell & Russell, 1961) (New Brunswick, New Jersey : Transaction Publishers, c2006).
* Kelsen, Hans. ''Principles of international law'' (New York : Rinehart, 1952) (New York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966) (Clark, New Jersey : Lawbook Exchange, 2003).
* Slaughter, Anne-Marie. ''A new world order'' (Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2004).
* Nye, Joseph S. ''Soft power'' (New York : Public Affairs, c2004).
* de Sousa Santos, Boaventura and César A. Rodríguez-Garavito, eds. ''Law and globalization from below : towards a cosmopolitan legality'' (Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2005)
* Marsh, James L. ''Unjust legality : a critique of Habermas's philosophy of law'' (Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c2001).
* Sarat, Austin, et al., eds. ''The limits of law'' (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2005).
* Milano, Enrico. ''Unlawful territorial situations in international law : reconciling effectiveness, legality and legitimacy'' (Leiden ; Boston : M. Nijhoff, c2006).
* Ackerman, Bruce, ed. ''Bush v. Gore : the question of legitimacy'' (New Haven : Yale University Press, c2002).
* Gabriel Hallevy ''A Modern Treatise on the Principle of Legality in Criminal Law'' (Heidelberg : Springer-Heidelberg, c2010).
legal positivism
Legal positivism (as understood in the Anglosphere) is a school of thought of analytical jurisprudence developed largely by legal philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. While Bentham and Austin d ...
Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali
''Nulla poena sine lege'' (Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present ...