Intro to Liability Insurance

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1. Why we need laws

-Rules of morality and custom tell us what we should and should not do. Laws are meant to control or change our behaviour, unlike rules of morality, they are enforced by the courts. The law provides a way to resolved disputes peacefully.

Laws help to ensure a safe and peaceful society in which people's rights are respected. The legal system respects individual rights, while at the same time ensures that our society operates in an orderly manner. The law applies to everybody.

2. Public and Private Law

Public law: Concerned with matters that affect society as a whole, public law sets the rules for the relationship between the individual and state, and inclues:

-Administrative law - body of law that servers to ensure that the activities of goverment are authorized by Parliament or provincial legislatures and that all laws are implemented and administered in a fair and reasonable manner. Deals with the decision making of goverment bodies - tribunals, boards or commisions in areas such a police, international trade, manufacturing, taxation, broadcasting, immigration and transport.

-Constitutional law: area of Canadian law relation to interpretation and application of the Constitution of Canada by the courts. Both provincial and federal must conform to the Constituion and any laws inconsistent with the Constitution have no force or effect.

Criminal Law: consists of rules and statutes that define conduct prohibited by the government because it threatens and harms public safety and welfare. Anyone who commits a criminal act commits a wrong against society as a whole.

Criminal acts fall into different categories:

Crimes against the state: treason, tax evasion, trade in contraband like drugs, counterfeiting, terrorism, driving under the influence or drugs or alcohol.

Crimes against the person: kidnapping, sexual assualt, assault and battery, murder.

Crimes against property: theft, possession of stolen property, fraud, arson, malicious mischief.

Private law: also called civil law, deals with settling dispute between individuals, corporations and governments on matters not involving criminal acts.

Private law is a matter of provincial jurisidiction, civil laws have been established in all provinces to set the rules governing the relationship of individuals, corporations and governments on a variety of matters such as contracts, properpty ownership, rights and obligations of family members, injury to someone or damage to property caused by others.