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12:30 AM

@nomenagentis are taking a line against disclaimers where legal advice is not given?

law.stackexchange.com/revisions/1033/3

1:59 AM

No. I'm just experimenting. That answer seemed to be improved by removing that intro line. Its clearly just describing how judges do things.

jimsug

2:42 AM

@nomenagentis fair enough. I fully support the idea of a cached, site-wide banner.

Similar to the Welcome or returning visitor ones (or possibly as part of them).

nomen agentis

3:48 AM

what is the "legal-concepts" tag?

law.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…

Isn't everything on this site a legal concept?

I would suggest removing it. Looking at the questions it's been applied to, there isn't any commonality that joins them together.

jimsug

4:00 AM

@nomenagentis I think they are all questioning the legality of certain things.

My one is more about jurisprudence, I guess.

Are we answering definitions questions such as this one?

3

Q: What are the differences between "Malum In Se" and "Malum Prohibitum" Laws

"Malum In Se" and "Malum Prohibitum" are Latin phrases, but beyond their translations what differences do they carry with them in describing laws? Malum In Se meaning "That which is wrong in itself" Malum Prohibitum meaning "That which is wrong because it is prohibited"

15

Q: What is jury nullification?

What is jury nullification and what are its origins and history? What actions by a juror would be considered nullification?

legal-history jury-nullification legal-concepts

Moreover, **should** we? At least, without the OP demonstrating their own research?

nomen agentis

4:16 AM

I think so. Often, they are legal terms of art, which carry much more meaning than their plain language definition.

jimsug

@nomenagentis Yeah, but there are numerous online resources that should elucidate their meaning.

I don't know, I'm coming at this from ELL where we didn't like "Google search" questions that ... well, could be answered with a Google search.

nomen agentis

Right, but there are numerous online resources that should elucidate the process for eviction in the UK also

jimsug

Heh, watching that too?

nomen agentis

I think we should accept them unless they start turning this site into a dictionary.

jimsug

Okay, that's fair.

nomen agentis

4:22 AM

:)

jimsug

btw, I've been searching online... it's about as clear as mud

Everyone seems to say 16yo and you can do what you want, but no-one cites any cases or legislation.

nomen agentis

Haha. I said that without searching... Should have known better

jimsug

Best I can find is Protection from Eviction Act.

I'll need to look at it a bit more closely. It may not be applicable here.

I have noticed Dale's answers are very commonsensical, and not necessarily referenced... could be a problem. Can you ping people who aren't in the room? @DaleM

Guess not.

/me shrugs.

Oh well,.

nomen agentis

Yeah ,I've asked for references in the comments to a couple of answers. One strayed off into a bit of editorializing about the motivations of the drafters of the US and Australian constitutions

jimsug

The main problem is that people tend to agree with commonsensical answers, even if they're not legally sound :/

As much as I don't really care about other people creating legal exposure for themselves, if that's even a thing, I don't want it to give Law.SE a bad reputation.

nomen agentis

4:35 AM

@DaleM, if you read this.. We haven't established firm referencing standards here , but answers are better when we dont have to trust the author.. And when readers can follow references to statutes and case law for confirmation and for satisfying further curiosity

Agreed

jimsug

It's been discussed before... meta.law.stackexchange.com/questions/28/…

5

Q: What references should we have?

A specific type of reference has alrady been covered in Do answers need to reference written laws or court cases?, but a general reference question is, I think, in order. What sources should answers be based on? The optimal sources are quotes from actual laws, of course, but Flup's point about t...

discussion references

5

A: Do answers need to reference written laws or court cases?

An answer will always be improved by a citation, but I don't think they should be mandatory. In many jurisdictions access to judgments is not free, so it would be a high bar to entry if we demanded that every answer cite correctly. People can always come along later and add missing citations to...

The problem is identifying those ones that should have references, and encouraging them to have them.

nomen agentis

I don't see how I would believe anyone's assertion that something is based in statute without reference.

jimsug

Yeah, basically that.

"You can do this. There's a law that says you can do this."

...

nomen agentis

Or that a certain fact pattern would be looked at a in particular way without at least an analogy to existing case law.

jimsug

I don't think that eviction question is covered under the Protection from Eviction Act.

sigh back to square one.

2

A: How do Saudi judges decide whether or not a person has become an adult and is eligible for the death penalty?

The Human Rights Watch published a report on children in Saudi Arabia's justice system("Arbitrary procedures for determining age of majority in criminal cases"): Judicial opinions on when a child can be tried as an adult vary widely, and frequently depend on measures of children’s physical de...

That was a fun one to research. Also a little unbelievable.

nomen agentis

4:42 AM

Good luck! (Tenant law doesn't interest me)

jimsug

Well, a lot unbelievable. But at the same time, completely believable.

I think I really mean surprising but believable.

nomen agentis

Wow.

I wonder how much deference to precedent there is in those casws

jimsug

Sounds like none.

Well, none was mentioned in the reports.

I don't have access to/can't read judgements.

nomen agentis

Like... In 2003, person A had physical characteristics X and was judged a man. Now, defendant has same characteristics, he should be judged a man.

That's the kind of thing I'm imagining.

jimsug

It's more like... "Men have these characteristics. Now defendant has these characteristics too. Defendant is a man."

:/

So I guess that's a kind of precedent. Something like what you're suggesting isn't too hard to imagine.

Thing is though, they would only really need to defer to those characteristics for minors.

nomen agentis

4:48 AM

Nice.. dale added a good reference : law.stackexchange.com/posts/1085/revisions

Now, instead of just seeming like off topic editorializing, we get the opinion of an expert

jimsug

See, I don't know how I feel about that.

Like, in this one it is explicitly asked for.

But in others, where the jurisdiction is very clearly not Australia, he's given Australian answers.

(And the OP hasn't invited other perspectives.)

nomen agentis

Ah.. I was commenting only on the improvement due to the added reference.

jimsug

I see.

nomen agentis

But I agree, jurisdiction should be clarified... I think there is a meta post about that

And randomly assuming an Australian (or US, etc.) jurisdiction is just a shot in the dark

jimsug

0

Q: What should the asker accept, and how should we vote, for questions without a specified jurisdiction?

There are two opposed answers to the question on localization of questions and answers. If we allow answers for any jurisdiction to a question, there might be tons of answers to each question -- and each of them valid! How do we proceed if we allow such general jurisdiction questions? Europe al...