Law

=== Constitutional and administrative law ===
{{main|Administrative law|Constitutional law}}
[[File:Declaration of Human Rights.jpg|thumb|The French [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]]]]

Constitutional and administrative law govern the affairs of the state. Constitutional law concerns both the relationships between the executive, legislature and judiciary and the human rights or [[civil liberties]] of individuals against the state. Most jurisdictions, like the [[Law of the United States|United States]] and [[Law of France|France]], have a single codified constitution with a [[bill of rights]]. A few, like the [[Law of the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]], have no such document. A "constitution" is simply those laws which constitute the [[body politic]], from [[statute]], [[case law]] and [[Constitutional convention (political custom)|convention]].

The fundamental constitutional principle, inspired by [[Two Treatises of Government|John Locke]], holds that [[Everything which is not forbidden is allowed|the individual can do anything except that which is forbidden by law]], and the state may do nothing except that which is authorised by law.<ref>Locke, ''The Second Treatise'', [[s:Two Treatises of Government/The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Origin, Extent, and End of Civil Government#2:9|Chapter 9, section 124]]</ref><ref>Tamanaha, ''On the Rule of Law'', 47</ref> Administrative law is the chief method for people to hold state bodies to account. People can sue an agency, local council, public service, or government ministry for [[judicial review]] of actions or decisions, to ensure that they comply with the law, and that the government entity observed required procedure. The first specialist administrative court was the ''[[Council of State (France)|Conseil d'État]]'' set up in 1799, as [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]] assumed power in France.{{sfn|Auby|2002|p=75}}

A subdiscipline of constitutional law is [[election law]]. It deals with rules governing elections. These rules enable the translation of the will of the people into functioning [[Democracy|democracies]]. Election law addresses issues who is entitled to [[Voting|vote]], [[voter registration]], [[ballot access]], [[campaign finance]] and [[Political party funding|party funding]], [[Redistribution (election)|redistricting]], [[Apportionment (politics)|apportionment]], [[electronic voting]] and [[voting machine]]s, [[accessibility]] of elections, [[Electoral system|election systems]] and formulas, [[vote counting]], election disputes, [[referendum]]s, and issues such as [[electoral fraud]] and [[Election silence|electoral silence]].