Professional Practice Chapter I

What is the Law?

Kamran Dahri
 WHAT IS THE LAW?
• Law is defined as ‘a set of rules that can be
enforced in a court’
• Different countries have different laws
– Sale of alcohol
– Divorce etc
• From the point of view of IS professional
– Data protection rules
– Rights of accessing information
– Misuse of computers, mobiles
– etc
 WHAT IS THE LAW? (Cont.)
• Also different counties have different legal
systems.
– Courts
– Court procedures
– Etc
• Jurisdiction
– In same country, different legal systems may
be followed in different jurisdictions.
• i.e USA and India
CRIMINAL LAW AND CIVIL LAW
• criminal law is “the set of mechanisms that
tries to punish wrongdoers, by fines or
imprisonment”.

• Civil law is “The purpose of the civil law is to

provide rules for settling disputes between
people.”
– People, organization etc
• Incorporation
 Some of the terms
• Court action under civil law is called
“litigation”.
• The person who initiates the court action
is known as “plaintiff”
 WHERE DOES THE LAW COME
FROM?
• The two main sources of law
– Common law
– Statute Law
• Common law
– Shared by almost all commonwealth countries
• Statute law
– law laid down by Acts of Parliament. It is often
referred to as legislation.
• i.e child labour and laws to prevent the misuse of
computers are just two examples of Parliament
creating new laws for such reasons.