9,901 articles
Church tax
Church tax (Kirchensteuer), a levy on members of recognized religions collected with income tax in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, and Swiss cantons; Germany charges 8-9% of income tax, yields billions annually, and opt-out requires deregistering from the church.
CIA black sites
CIA black sites were secret overseas detention facilities of the post-9/11 CIA rendition, detention, and interrogation program, confirmed in Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and Thailand, ended by Executive Order 13491 in January 2009 and documented in the 6,700-page Senate torture study.
Cindy K. Chung
Cindy K. Chung, also known as Cindy Kyounga Chung, is an American jurist on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals since 2023, appointed by President Biden.
Cindy K. Jorgenson
Cindy K. Jorgenson, born 1953, is an American jurist serving as a senior United States district judge for the District of Arizona since 2018, appointed by George W. Bush in 2002.
Cindy Rodriguez Singh
Cindy Rodriguez Singh, also spelled Rodriguez-Singh, is a Texas woman charged with capital murder in the death of her son Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez; she fled to India in 2023, was FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive #537, and was captured in India in 2025.
Circumcision and law
Circumcision and law covers the legal status of male and female circumcision: FGM is statutorily banned (UK 1985 Act, WHO four types), while non-therapeutic male circumcision is lawful and unregulated in England, regulated by § 1631d BGB in Germany after the 2012 Cologne ruling, and unregulated in the US.
Circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence, also called indirect evidence, proves a fact by inference rather than directly. Distinguished from direct evidence; treated as equal in weight; sufficient for conviction when circumstances form an unbroken, consistent chain.
Citizen's arrest
Citizen's arrest: detention of a suspected offender by a private person rather than police, rooted in English common law and the 1285 Statute of Winchester. Legal in most US states except Georgia (repealed 2021 after Ahmaud Arbery's killing), with felony/misdemeanor limits and false imprisonment liability.
Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice (National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, charity 279057) is a UK charity network giving free, confidential advice on debt, benefits, housing, and consumer issues; founded 4 September 1939 as wartime bureaux, now 259 local charities plus a national body.
Citizens United v. FEC
Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), Supreme Court decision holding corporate and union independent election spending is First Amendment-protected speech, overruling Austin and part of McConnell, enabling super PACs and dark money.
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), India's amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 creating a citizenship pathway for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered India before 31 December 2014; rules notified March 2024, under Supreme Court challenge.
Citizenship and immigration for adopted children in Canada
A child adopted abroad by a Canadian parent can become Canadian through a direct citizenship grant or through sponsorship for permanent residence followed by naturalization, with different eligibility rules.
Citizenship Clause
Citizenship Clause, first sentence of Fourteenth Amendment Section 1, source of U.S. birthright citizenship; construed in Wong Kim Ark (1898) and upheld against Executive Order 14160 in Trump v. Barbara (2026).
Citizenship of the United States
Citizenship of the United States, or U.S. nationality, is held at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment's jus soli rule (Wong Kim Ark, 1898) or acquired by naturalization; in 2026 the Supreme Court's Trump v. Barbara ruling struck down an executive order restricting it.
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, also known as Grants Pass v. Johnson, is a 2024 US Supreme Court ruling that enforcing public-camping bans is not cruel and unusual punishment.
CIV (rail travel)
CIV (rail travel) refers to the Uniform Rules for the international carriage of passengers and luggage by rail, Appendix A to the COTIF convention of 9 May 1980, marked on tickets and governing carrier liability and passenger rights.
Civil Code of Russia
Civil Code of the Russian Federation (ГК РФ): the Russian Federation's private-law code, adopted in four parts 1994–2006 (Federal Laws 51-FZ, 14-FZ, 146-FZ, 230-FZ), covering persons, property, obligations, inheritance, and intellectual property, with continual amendments since 1996.
Civil Code of the People's Republic of China
Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国民法典), China's unified private-law code: adopted May 28, 2020, effective January 1, 2021, 1,260 articles in seven books, first PRC law titled 'code', after five codification attempts since 1954.
Civil Code of the Philippines
Civil Code of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 386), the 1949 statute governing persons, property, obligations and contracts, and succession; drafted by the Code Commission, largely derived from the Spanish Civil Code of 1889, partially superseded by the Family Code of 1988.
Civil Code of Ukraine (Цивільний кодекс України)
Civil Code of Ukraine (Цивільний кодекс України, Law No. 435-IV, 16 January 2003): Ukraine's core private-law code, applied subsidiarily to family relations alongside the 2002 Family Code, and now undergoing recodification via draft bill No. 15150.
Civil forfeiture in the United States
Civil forfeiture in the United States lets the government seize property in rem without a criminal conviction, under a preponderance standard, with proceeds often flowing to law enforcement via equitable sharing.
Civil law (common law)
Civil law (common law): the code-based legal tradition derived from Roman law and Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis, contrasted with English-derived common law; codes over precedent, Napoleonic Code 1804, BGB 1900, dominant in Europe and former colonies.
Civil law (legal system)
Civil law (legal system), also called continental or Romano-Germanic law, is a legal system derived from Roman law and based on codified statutes, covering about 60% of the world, distinct from common law's reliance on judicial precedent.
Civil partnership in the United Kingdom
Civil partnership in the UK is a legal relationship created by the Civil Partnership Act 2004, originally for same-sex couples and extended to opposite-sex couples in 2019; formed by signing a document, it gives rights close to marriage while remaining a separate legal regime.
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875, also called the Sumner civil rights bill, was a Reconstruction-era federal law banning racial discrimination in public accommodations and juries, struck down by the Supreme Court in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Act of 1957 (P.L. 85-315), first federal civil rights law since 1875; created the DOJ Civil Rights Division and a temporary Commission on Civil Rights and authorized voting-rights injunctions, though jury-trial compromises left it largely ineffective.
Civil Rights Act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, is a U.S. federal statute enacted in 1968 prescribing penalties and prohibiting housing discrimination.
Civil solidarity pact
The civil solidarity pact (pacte civil de solidarité, PACS) is a French civil union contract created by the law of 15 November 1999, open to same- and different-sex couples, registered free at a town hall, with default separation of property and inheritance-tax exemption for the surviving partner.
Civilizing mission
Civilizing mission (mission civilisatrice): nineteenth-century European imperial justification for bringing Christianity, schooling, and Western culture to colonized peoples; advanced especially under the French Third Republic andcriticized as cover for domination.
Claire C. Cecchi
Claire C. Cecchi, born Claire Claudia Cecchi in 1964, is a United States district judge in New Jersey appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011.