Legal status is the status or position held by an entity as determined by the
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
. It includes or entails a set of
privileges,
obligations
An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when ther ...
, powers or restrictions that a person or thing has as encompassed in or declared by
legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...
.
Jack Balkin
Jack M. Balkin (born August 13, 1956) is an American legal scholar. He is the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. Balkin is the founder and director of the Yale Information Society Project (ISP), a re ...
has defined the term by writing that "In law, status is generally a characteristic of an individual that has some legal consequences. Examples are being a servant, a woman, or a minor. Sometimes legal status refers to a characteristic wholly created by law, such as being a Social Security recipient." Thus, legal status is "a feature of individuals and their relationships to the law". Tiffany Graham added to Balkin's definition: "legal status refers to a set of characteristics that define an individual's membership in an official class, as a consequence of which rights, duties, capacities and/or incapacities are acquired."
Footnotes
International law
Conflict of laws
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