section_path: Contemporary uses/Governance and law
section_name: Governance and law
paragraph_text: Governance and law
  
  Many modern systems of government are organized and sanctified through written constitutions at the national and sometimes state or other organizational levels. Written rules and procedures typically guide the operations of the various branches, departments, and other bodies of government, which regularly produce reports and other documents as work products and to account for their actions. In addition to legislative branches that draft and pass laws, these laws are administered by an executive branch, which can present further written regulations specifying the laws and how they are carried out. Governments at different levels also typically maintain written records on citizens concerning identities, life events such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, the granting of licenses for controlled activities, criminal charges, traffic offenses, and other penalties small and large, and tax liability and payments.
  
  Governance systems also produce policies to shape society's activities, sometimes also at the international level, e.g., allocating budgets and regulating or actuating economic mechanisms, ideally towards collective goals and values such as safety and health or addressing identified problems. These also include systems at subnational levels, such as cities and multinational corporations (e.g., corporate governance and Web platform governance).
  
  Written legal codes in modern governments are typically produced by legislative branches and provide standardized rules for commercial, civil, and lawful activity. The legal codes also provide remedies and penalties for violations of the rules, as well as procedures for their enforcement. In the United States, legal proceedings in courts produce written records, which can be appealed based on the written records to higher courts. Written records carry particular evidentiary weight in court proceedings. Lawyers also offer written briefs for initial proceedings, subsequent appeals, and other points at issue; maintain files on the cases they are engaged with; and negotiate written agreements that might resolve cases. Judges produce written opinions that may then be treated as precedent for subsequent cases.
  
  Police departments and other bodies charged with the enforcement of laws and maintenance of civil, commercial, or criminal order regularly must produce reports of the interactions with community members, actions taken, the process and results of inquiries, and the disposition of cases. Such cases are often initiated by written complaints by those alleging injury, thereby opening a file on the case, which then aggregates all the related documents and reports to follow. These files serve as the basis for processing the case, as potential evidence in legal proceedings, and for monitoring and making accountable the working of these departments.