ect their collective right to a stable, secure society. Individuals retain other rights such as life and liberty. Neither government, nor law, nor elected officials can interfere with these privileges. Some of the rights retained by individuals are described in the Bill of Rights, which limits the powers of Congress.Other types of law include Common law. This consists of the customary practices created by past judicial decisions. After a court makes a decision, that decision becomes an example of what can be applied to similar cases. Based on previous cases and their application to new cases, judicial reasoning proceeds from one case to another and accumulates to form the basis of common law. Today common law is relevant mostly to areas of family law and disputes over contracts and property. Administrative law is different than Common Law because it involves disputes regarding the authority of administrative agencies that are part of the executive branch. Regulations established by federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration regulates the testing of new medicine. This agency is not elected bodies, and yet they have emerged as independent policy-makers. The rise in importance of these administrative agencies challenges the rule of law because officials who are appointed, not elected, exercise a great deal of power. As a result, their rules and procedures have been questioned. An issue is whether the authority of these agencies is abused and whether their actions are within the jurisdictions delegated to them by Congress. Another type of law is statute law which is enacted by a legislative body at the federal, state, or local level. This is the most common law. Statute law pertains to either criminal law or civil law. Civil law, which governs the relations of citizens among themselves, involves disputes between citizens and between government and citizen where no crime has happened. Criminal law deals with public la...
