Portal:Criminal justice/Selected article/17
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Law is a system of rules which is usually enforced through a set of institutions. Law frames everyday life and society in a wide variety of ways. "The rule of law," wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 BC, "is better than the rule of any individual." Legal systems around the world elaborate legal rights and responsibilities in different ways. A basic distinction is made between civil law jurisdictions and systems using common law. Small numbers of countries still base their law on religious scripts. Scholars investigate the nature of law through many perspectives, including legal history and philosophy, or social sciences, such as economics and sociology. The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness and justice, which is not always simple. "In its majestic equality," said the author Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." The most important institutions for law are the judiciary, the legislature, the executive, its bureaucracy, the military and police, the legal profession and civil society.
