sanction (law)
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Sanctions, in law and legal definition, are penalties or other means of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law, or with rules and
regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
s. Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious
punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular acti ...
, such as corporal or
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
,
incarceration Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...
, or severe
fines Fines may refer to: *Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality *Fine (penalty) * Fine, a dated term for a premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term *Fines, ore or other products with a sma ...
. Within the context of civil law, sanctions are usually monetary fines, levied against a party to a
lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
or their attorney, for violating rules of
procedure Procedure may refer to: * Medical procedure * Instructions or recipes, a set of commands that show how to achieve some result, such as to prepare or make something * Procedure (business), specifying parts of a business process * Standard operat ...
, or for abusing the
judicial process Legal process (sometimes simply process) is any formal notice or writ by a court obtaining jurisdiction over a person or property. Common forms of process include a summons, subpoena, mandate, and warrant. Process normally takes effect by ...
. The most severe sanction in a civil lawsuit is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of a complaining party's cause of action, or of the responding party's answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an
appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
or trial ''de novo'' may be allowed because of reversible error. As a noun, the term is usually used in the plural form, even if it only refers to a single event: if a
judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
fines a party, it is not said that they imposed a sanction, but that they imposed sanctions. A judge may sanction a party during a legal proceeding, by which it is implied that they impose penalties. In the United States federal court system, certain types of conduct are sanctionable under Rule 11 of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (officially abbreviated Fed. R. Civ. P.; colloquially FRCP) govern civil procedure in United States district courts. The FRCP are promulgated by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enabling ...
. Conversely and sometimes confusingly, the word may be used to imply "approve of," especially in an official sense. "The law sanctions such behavior" would imply that the behavior spoken of enjoys the specific approval of law. To sanction implies make a legal agreement. The word is derived from sanctus, to make holy. A legal agreement or sanction imposes approvals, rules, guidelines and penalties on conduct.


References


Bibliography

*
Herbert L. A. Hart Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (18 July 190719 December 1992), known simply as H. L. A. Hart, was an English legal philosopher. He was Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. His ...
, ''The Concept of Law'', Oxford University Press, London, 1961; * Gerd Spittler, ''Norm und Sanktion. Untersuchungen zum Sanktionsmechanismus'', Walter, Olten-Freiburg, 1967; * Norberto Bobbio, ''Sanzione'', Novissimo Digesto, UTET, Torino, XVI, Torino, 1969, 530-540; *
Niklas Luhmann Niklas Luhmann (; ; December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory. Biography Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Free State of Prussia, where his father's fa ...
, ''Rechtssoziologie'', Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1972; * Ota Weinberger, ''Der Sanktionsbegriff und die pragmatische Auswirkung gesellschaftlicher Normen'', in H. Lenk, Hrsg., Normenlogik, Verlag Dokumentation, Pullach bei München, 1974, 89-111; *
Lawrence M. Friedman Lawrence Meir Friedman (born April 2, 1930) is an American law professor, historian of American legal history, and author of nonfiction and fiction books. He has been a member of the faculty at Stanford Law School since 1968. Biography Friedma ...
, ''The Legal System. A Social Science Perspective'', Russel Sage Foundation, New York, 1975; * Norberto Bobbio, ''Dalla struttura alla funzione. Nuovi studi di teoria del diritto'', Comunità, Milano, 1977; * Vilhelm Aubert, ''On Sanctions'', in “European Yearbook in Law and Sociology”, 1977, 1-19; *
H. Kelsen Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise o ...
, ''Allgemeine Theorie der Normen'', Manzsche Verlags- und Universitätsbuchhandlung, Wien, 1979; * F. D’Agnostino, ''Sanzione'', "Enciclopedia del diritto", XLI, Giuffrè, Milano, 1989, 303-328; * Ota Weinbeger, ''Rechtslogik'', Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1989; * Charles-Albert Morand, ''Sanction'', “Archives de Philosophie du droit”, XXXV, 1990, 293-312; * Heike Jung, ''Sanktionensysteme und Menschenrechte'', Haupt, Bern-Stuttgart-Wien, 1992; * Juan Carlos Bayon, ''Sanction'', Dictionnaire encyclopédique de théorie et de sociologie du droit, L.G.D.J., Paris, 1993, 536-540; * Realino Marra, ''Sanzione'', "Digesto delle discipline privatistiche. Sezione civile", UTET, Torino, XVIII, 1998, 153-61. {{Authority control Judiciaries Legal procedure Punishments