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As much as they like
Most pieces of legislation have a “dictionary” detailing, for the purposes of that legislation (or generally) what specific words and phrases mean. This can broaden (or narrow) the definition compared to how they are used in normal English.
The purpose of this is not to set a trap for the unwary, although this may happen, but to ...
16
There is a definition
Or rather, there are as many definitions as there are jurisdictions who have passed laws about them.
In australia, a terrorist is a person who commits a terrorist act.
A terrorist act is an act, or a threat to act, that meets both these criteria:
it intends to coerce or influence the public or any government by intimidation ...
14
You're thinking of legalism. It can have different meanings -- especially in Chinese legal/philosophical history -- but is the best match to the concept you're describing.
11
The effective limit is whatever the courts will put up with. Legislatures can pass laws that will be overturned by the courts, so the real question is whether a redefinition will be upheld by the courts. It can be difficult to calculate whether a given law will be upheld, or how it will be reinterpreted if challenged in court. Given the current Supreme Court,...
9
Where does outer space legally start?
International law does not define the edge of space, or the limit of national airspace according to footnotes 2 and 3 of the Kármán line's Wikipedia entry.
Footnote 15, referencing the book International Law: A Dictionary by Boleslaw Adam Boczek, offers this:
The issue whether it is possible or useful to establish a ...
8
Legalese
The purpose of a legal document is to set out the rights and responsibilities so that:
they can understand them,
a third party (e.g. a judge) can rule on them in the event of a dispute.
These two requirements are often in tension.
We have about 1,000 years of legal precedent where certain words and phrases (sometimes in Latin rather than English)...
7
100km
According to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale who are generally considered the record-keeping body on such matters, the Kármán line is where space begins and is rounded off to 100km above the Earth’s surface.
Of course, this is a Sorites paradox definition because there is no line where Earth’s atmosphere ends. The ground is definitely inside ...
6
It depends on the jurisdiction and particular facts. The long history of not counting marriage as prostitution under law because of its social and religious legitimacy makes the transaction-related aspects of marriage fall outside the definition of prostitution in most cases that are not the explicit sale of a person for consideration, which is obviously ...
6
Is an article licensed under an Open Access license equivalent to a public domain work? No.
Intellectual property practitioners and professors often describe copyright as "a bundle of sticks." This means that intellectual property laws grant the creator of a copyrightable work a large number of rights, and the creator can grant or deny others each of those ...
6
Yes.
This is clearly kidnapping. It is probably not a terribly aggravated sub-type of kidnapping, but it is kidnapping nonetheless. It is probably a felony.
The fact that the victim does not press charges, or ratifies the conduct after the fact, does not change the fact that a crime was committed.
The police decision to arrest the ex-boyfriend was ...
6
You will note that the quoted definition says that
person includes a corporation sole, a body corporate, and an unincorporated body
What it doesn't say, but almost certainty intends, is that "person" also includes a natural person, that is an ordinary human being with a single body.
What is happening here (I think) is that the law is specifying ...
5
Legalese is unnecessary. My first mortgage was from a bank that prided itself on not using it - the closing documents were about twenty pages, and the seller's attorney was amazed at how plainly written my bank's stuff was.
My favorite was the letter of confirmation they sent when we went into contract. It was one line that essentially said, "if the seller ...
5
In England and Wales, theft is defined by s1 Theft Act 1968:
A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it
It does not matter if the victim is not the rightful owner of the property, as the law only requires that the property belongs to another: the ...
5
Financial institutions in the US are subject to regulations that restrict what sorts of things non-licensed employees can talk about with clients and advice they can give about structuring accounts and payments in ways that might avoid triggering money laundering alarms.
I think this employee was being cautious about getting into a gray area and phrased ...
5
First degree kidnapping is abducting with various exploitative intents such as ransom, using as human shield, or messing with government function. Second degree kidnapping is any abduction, with an exception if
(1) The abduction is not coupled with intent to use or to threaten to
use deadly force,
(2) The actor is a relative of the person abducted, ...
5
In most states or localities "loitering " has a specific statutory meaning. For example in Prince Georges County. MD Section 14-139.03 provides:
(a) In this Section, "loiter" means for a person to:
(1) Remain on a public street, sidewalk, or pathway, including one privately-owned but used by the public in general, so as to obstruct the free passage ...
5
No
The term "sword and shield" is allegorical rather than legal and may be called up in any number of contexts. Such as ...
Waiver of privilege
In the particular instance, Anthem was claiming that the reports were privileged and hence protected from discovery, presumably because they were prepared in contemplation of litigation - this litigation, one ...
5
Here is the full sentence:
"Prima facie case is not to be confused with prima facie title which has to be established, on evidence at the trial."
As you probably know, prima facie means "on its face." A prima facie case is a case in which one party has presented enough evidence to support a verdict in its favor. A title is a document that ...
4
A reasonable hypothetical example of where your clause "C" would be applied: A defendant is written a citation for "spitting on the sidewalk," in violation of a hypothetical Portland city ordinance. In presenting extenuating details, the defendant indicates that the expectoration occurred because she had taken a bite of vended food that was belatedly ...
4
None of the things listed are statutes. They are all parts of or compilations of parts of statutes.
A 'statute' is a document issued by an official body, such as Congress, which contains a law or command.
'USC' refers to the United States Code, which is a compilation of statutory law. It is not the law. It is prima facie evidence of the law, but may be ...
4
A limited license normally contains limits in the scope of use you may make of intellectual property (geographical or in type of use), in the extent to which it can be sublicensed, in the people who may use it pursuant to the license, and/or in the duration during which one may use it. Most licenses for intellectual property are limited.
An unlimited ...
4
The guys with the guns robbing the bank are accomplices, the guy driving the getaway car is an accessory.
4
As user6726 notes in an answer, the page you link to derives from 26 USC 7701. However, it does not reproduce the text accurately. There, "United States person" is defined at section 7701(a)(30), and it notably lacks anything corresponding to "any other person that is not a foreign person."
It's possible that that language is motivated by some court ...
4
Here is a list of language-regulating bodies. There is none for English, but they exist for Spanish (Real Academia Española), French (Académie française) and Swahil (Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa for Tanzania, Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa for Kenya).
No language regulator addresses the issues which arise in the interaction between natural language and the ...
4
The word "terrorist" (or "terrorism") is like any other word of the English language, which means that the notion of an "authoritative" definition is a bit sketchy. One finds definitions in dictionaries, and I suppose an authoritative definition is found in an authoritative dictionary. Your desideratum of an authoritative source precludes using ...
3
Defamation per se (thus libel per se) pertains to the nature of the statement and the question of whether there was harm done to the person. For some accusatory statements, it must be proven that the statement actually caused damage to the person. If the statement falls into one of 4 categories, it can be defamation per se, meaning that by its nature it ...
3
An agreement via text is a written agreement.
An agreement via phone is an oral agreement. A recording of the call does not change the form of the agreement.
Irrespective of an agreement being oral or written, parties can argue about who said what and what they meant and all that. These arguments will available or unavailable under various legal ...
3
It's not clear whether you mean that the entire agreement is carried out by text message. If you have a paper or electronic document stating what the parties will do, that is the agreement, and signatures are a conventional form of proof that there is an agreement. A handshake or a verbal statement – or text mesage – could also serve as evidence of the ...
3
Let and lease are variations of the same word; the former is more common in British English and the latter more common in American English.
Leasing is the verb form of lease.
Adding sub to any of them just moves the arrangement down from being between the owner and the tenant to being between a tenant and a (sub)tenant.
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