Primary and Secondary Law

(Atlantic City, NJ)-  If you are in the United States of  America, your reading this blog, I can safely assume that you are interested in understanding the Statutes of these United States of America.  A "statute" can be defined as an act of the legislature declaring, commanding, or prohibiting something; a particular law established by the will of the legislative department of government.

The authorities of law within the jurisdictions of the U.S. may be divided into two categories or divisions other than God's law and man's law as I previously pointed out, and those divisions are termed "primary" and "secondary" law.

Primary Law is found within written constitutions and the enactment of legislatures (and in some jurisdictions through the vote of their electorates); rulings and regulations issued by authorized administrative bodies; and the body of law found in the written opinions of the courts. An easy way to remember it is by looking at the United States first as a whole, and the nation is formed by the Constitution, which allow there to be a government.

After looking on the national level, in the case of the U.S.  We think Federal law which goes from coast to coast.  But then there are the individual States which make up the nation and for separate jurisdiction that kinda want to be left alone. So we get State law, the state constitutions allow counties to be formed in which there are cities.  Hence statutes of a state, regulations of a county such as zoning laws, then city ordinances.

If you are dealing with constitutions, legislation, or decisions of the highest court of a jurisdiction you are dealing with what's known as "Mandatory primary" laws.  One arriving at JFK airport in New York from lets say Cuba, and being arrested for violating our nations drug laws would receive a charge for violating a Federal Statute, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States holds the most weight and must be followed.

Beyond the primary sources of the law above attorney's and courts use many other types of law books that a pro se litigant must become familiar with.  These include treatises, periodicals and journals, form books, and citators make up and or complete the secondary sources of the law.

Join me next time when I will discuss what I've learned about legal research. Thanks for viewing.  EDH Pro se!

God's Law & Mans Law

(Pro Se HQ Atlantic City, NJ)-  EDH pro se, is of the opinion that there are two forms or categories of law, those being God's Law and Man's Law.  Somehow I get the impression that the courts feel God is out of His jurisdiction when it comes to matters here on earth.

 In the United States the major jurisdictions are Federal and State.  As we all know from hearing it in school, there must also be a separation of "Church" and "State", so maybe this accounts for God's Law not having authority in a court of law, even though it is sometimes cited and still undisputed before the courts.

God gave man ten laws in the Ten Commandments. In the United States there are too many laws for me to list in this blog.  However, I can share with you that there are various branches of laws in the US.  Some of these branches of law are:

Bankruptcy				Family
Civil				Federal
Constitutional				Immigration
Corporate				International
Criminal				Marine
Employment/Labor				Personal Injury/Tort
Environmental				Property

There are others, such as Administrative and Tax law, but this is just a short-list.  In this blog I will mainly concentrate on those branches that I have researched and applied in my own court matters.

In his book "Bad Acts and Guilty Minds Conundrums of the Criminal Law" Leo Katz, says on page 1 in the second paragraph that: "Most people think of the criminal law as something like the Ten Commandments, a long list of thou-shalt-nots, only much longer duller, and more obscure.  But the Ten Commandments would not do as a criminal code, and not only because there are just ten of them. As criminal code, the Ten Commandments have serious shortcomings."

So what does man do?  If we look at the short-list of 16 above we can see that the so called shortcomings of the Ten Commandments have not been solved, and in this writers opinion, a greater conundrum has been created because the person of average intelligence has to hire a lawyer to demystify the volumes of laws they submit, and or consent too.  What do you think, are there too many laws?

Thank you, EDH Pro se