9,901 articles
Puma Shen
Puma Shen (沈伯洋), born 1982, Taiwanese criminologist, lawyer, and DPP legislator; UC Irvine PhD, National Taipei University professor, Kuma Academy co-founder, researcher of CCP information warfare, sanctioned by China, 2026 Taipei mayoral candidate.
Pump and dump
Pump and dump, also called ramp and dump, is securities fraud in which promoters inflate an asset's price with false statements, then sell into the inflated market; it targets microcap stocks and cryptocurrencies and is banned under US, UK, and EU market-abuse rules.
Punishment
Punishment is the legal imposition of penalties such as imprisonment, fines, and probation for criminal offenses. Also called criminal sanctions, it serves deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, restitution, and rehabilitation; meta-analyses find imprisonment does not reduce reoffending versus noncustodial sanctions.
Punishment in Australia
Punishment in Australia covers sentencing and sanctions across nine jurisdictions: imprisonment (228 per 100,000 adults, 2026), community corrections orders (371 per 100,000), jurisdictional variation, Indigenous over-representation, and penal reform debates.
Punitive damages
Punitive damages, also called exemplary damages, are civil awards beyond compensatory damages meant to punish and deter egregious conduct. Rooted in English multiple-damages statutes (1275 onward) and eighteenth-century common law, they are constitutionally reviewed in the US under BMW v. Gore's three guideposts.
Punjab and Haryana High Court
Punjab and Haryana High Court, common High Court for Punjab, Haryana, and Chandigarh, seated at Chandigarh. Successor to the 1919 Lahore High Court via the 1947 East Punjab High Court; renamed in 1966; Le Corbusier building opened 1955.
Putative marriage
Putative marriage: a legally null marriage treated as valid for a good-faith spouse, also called the putative spouse doctrine. Grants civil effects such as property division, support, and inheritance; rooted in canon law, codified in French and Louisiana civil codes and California Family Code § 2251.
Putney Pusher
The Putney Pusher is an unidentified jogger who pushed a woman into the path of a bus on Putney Bridge, London, in May 2017; the case remains unsolved.
Pyramid scheme
Pyramid scheme: illegal business model where returns come mainly from recruiting new paying participants rather than product sales; contrasts with Ponzi schemes and legitimate multi-level marketing; mathematically certain to collapse.
Pyrénées-Orientales
Pyrénées-Orientales (Catalan: Pirineus Orientals), French department 66, prefecture Perpignan; also called Roussillon or Catalunya Nord. Created 1790 from the province ceded by the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees plus the Fenouillèdes; 484,215 residents (2018), tourism-led economy.
Qadi
A qadi, also spelled kadi or kazi (Arabic: qāḍī), is the judge of an Islamic court, charged by a ruler to apply and enforce religious law.
Qazi Faez Isa (قاضی فائز عیسیٰ)
Qazi Faez Isa (قاضی فائز عیسیٰ), Pakistani judge born 1959 in Quetta; chief justice of Balochistan from 2009, Supreme Court judge 2014, and 29th chief justice of Pakistan, September 2023 to October 2024.
Qian Zhimin (criminal)
Qian Zhimin (钱志敏), alias Yadi Zhang, Chinese fraudster born 1978 who ran the Lantian Gerui Ponzi scheme (2014-2017, 128,000 victims), fled to the UK, and was jailed 11 years 8 months in 2025 over the UK's largest bitcoin seizure.
Qualified domestic relations order
A qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) is a court order under ERISA section 206(d)(3) and IRC 414(p) that assigns a retirement plan participant's benefits to an alternate payee such as a former spouse, child, or dependent in divorce or support proceedings.
Qualified immunity
Qualified immunity is a US judicial doctrine shielding government officials from civil damages suits unless they violated clearly established constitutional or statutory rights; established by Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982) after Pierson v. Ray (1967), applied in Section 1983 civil cases only.
Quantum meruit
Quantum meruit, Latin for "as much as one has deserved," is a legal doctrine allowing recovery of the reasonable value of services when no contract sets a price.
Quartering Acts
The Quartering Acts were two British laws of 1765 and 1774 requiring American colonies to house and pay for British soldiers, a major grievance of the Revolution.
Quasi-contract
Quasi-contract, or contract implied in law, is a court-imposed obligation preventing unjust enrichment without any agreement. Covers Roman quasi ex contractu roots, the 1937 and Third Restatements, civil law negotiorum gestio, and comparative Islamic approaches.
Quasi-delict
Quasi-delict: a wrongful act giving rise to compensation obligations, from Roman obligations quasi ex delicto in Justinian's Institutes; survives in Philippine Civil Code Article 2176 and EU private international law, distinct from deliberate delict and common-law tort.
Quasi-judicial body
A quasi-judicial body is a non-court government organ exercising court-like functions: hearings, evidence, and decisions affecting rights, subject to judicial review. Examples include administrative tribunals, regulatory commissions, and UN treaty bodies, with the ICC and Humphrey's Executor as landmarks.
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT), established 1 December 2009 under the QCAT Act 2009, is Queensland's independent civil, administrative and disciplinary tribunal handling minor civil disputes, government decision reviews, and appeals.
Quentin L. Kopp
Quentin Lewis Kopp (born 1928) is a retired American judge, Independent California state senator (1986–1998), San Francisco supervisor (1972–1986), and San Mateo County Superior Court judge (1999–2004), author of the California High-Speed Rail Authority act.
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo, Latin for "something for something," is an exchange of one thing for another; in law it names contractual consideration, Title VII sexual harassment, and the exchange structure of bribery.
R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union
R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5, Miller No. 1: UK Supreme Court case holding 8-3 that Article 50 Brexit notification required an Act of Parliament, not royal prerogative; distinct from the 2019 prorogation case Miller No. 2.
R v Askov
R v Askov, [1990] 2 SCR 1199, a Supreme Court of Canada Charter decision; nearly two-year Peel County trial delay breached s. 11(b), producing tens of thousands of stays in Ontario.
R v Brown
R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19, [1994] 1 AC 212: House of Lords case holding that consent is no defence to actual bodily harm or wounding inflicted in consensual sadomasochistic activity, distinguished in R v Wilson and restated by section 71 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
R v Dudley and Stephens
R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, also called Regina v Dudley and Stephens, an English Queen's Bench Division case from the Mignonette shipwreck, held that necessity is not a defence to murder; convicted sailors' death sentences were commuted to six months.
R v Hasan
R v Hasan [2005] UKHL 22 (also R v Z) is a House of Lords case and the leading English authority on duress: duress fails where the defendant voluntarily associated with criminals and foresaw violent compulsion; exculpatory statements are not PACE confessions.
R v Marshall
R v Marshall is the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision recognizing a Mi'kmaq treaty right under the 1760-61 Peace and Friendship Treaties to hunt, fish and gather for a moderate livelihood, subject to justified regulation.
R v Ruzic
R v Ruzic, 2001 SCC 24, is a Supreme Court of Canada case in which Marijana Ruzic's acquittal for importing heroin was upheld and the immediacy and presence requirements of the Criminal Code duress defence, s. 17, were struck down under Charter s. 7.