Legal Maxims — Actus de nemini facit injuriam

A cricketer is given out, the replay shows the umpire was wrong, and the crowd shouts that the decision should be undone because nobody should suffer for the umpire's mistake. Courts feel the same pull, and for centuries they have packed that feeling into short Latin sayings. A maxim is a compressed rule of reasoning that a lawyer can quote in one breath. The question for this topic is what each famous maxim actually says, where Indian law uses it, and where it stops being useful.

In two minutes

A legal maxim is a short Latin proposition that states a settled principle of law or of interpretation; you must give the Latin, its plain meaning, and an Indian illustration, and you must know that a maxim guides a court but never overrides a statute.

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