De facto
See De Facto (band) for the American band.
De facto is a
Latin expression that means "in fact" or "in practice". It is commonly used in contrast to
de jure (which means "by law") when referring to matters of
law,
governance, or technique (such as
standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without or against a regulation.When discussing a legal situation,
de jure designates what the law says, while
de facto designates what happens in practice (which may or may not be legal).
The term
de facto may also be used when there is no relevant law or standard, but a common practice is well established, although perhaps not quite universal.
A de facto government is one that maintains itself by a display of force against the will of the rightful legal government and is successful, at least temporarily, in overturning the institutions of the rightful legal government by setting up its own in lieu thereof
[Wortham v. Walker, 133 Tex. 255, 128 S.W.2d 1138, 1145. Black's Law Dictionary 4th Edition (1951) page 504.].
A
de facto standard is a technical or other
standard that is so dominant that everybody seems to follow it like an authorized standard. The
de jure standard may be different: one example is the act of speeding found on highways. Although the
de jure standard is to drive at the speed limit or slower, in many places the
de facto standard is to drive at the speed limit or slightly faster.
Another example: there is no law preventing a 27th letter such as
Þ (thorn) from being added to the standard 26-letter
Latin alphabet used for modern
English; indeed, letters were added centuries ago without much difficulty. But today one is prevented from doing so by the practical difficulties involved, and thus there is a
de facto limit on modifications to the alphabet; it is impractical to add such a letter as no one will recognize it.
One other example could be the metric and imperial measurement systems: In Canada inches and feet are often used for a variety of measurements commonly even though Canada offically uses Metric.
A
de facto standard is sometimes not formalized and may simply rely on the fact that someone has come up with a good idea that is liked so much that it is copied. Typical creators of
de facto standards are individual
companies,
corporations, and
consortia. In computing,
de facto standards can sometimes become
de jure standards due to market superiority. For example,
JavaScript by
Netscape (standardized as
ECMAScript) and parts of
DOM Level 0 (standardized in DOM Level 1/2 HTML Specification).
The acceptance of de facto national languages is sometimes used as a means of remaining unprejudiced or unbiased. In the
United States, the federal government has not declared national language.
English is accepted as the de facto national language. To partially cope with this situation, the federal government has given states the right to declare their official language. This right is exercised, with
New Mexico having declared both English and
Spanish as their official languages ever since it became a state in the USA. Also,
Louisiana uses
French and English as official languages, and
Hawaii uses
Hawaiian and English as official languages.
Similarly, in the former
Soviet Union,
Russian was not legally the official language, but de facto. A similar situation occurs in the
UK, where English is the dominant language.
Sweden is another case of a country with no
de jure language.
A
de facto government is a government wherein all the attributes of sovereignty have, by usurpation, been transferred from those who had been legally invested with them to others, who, sustained by a power above the forms of law, claim to act and do act in their stead. 30 Am Jur 181. Law Dictionary, James A. Ballentine, Second Edition, 1948, page 345.
In politics, a
de facto leader of a country or region is one who has assumed authority, regardless of whether by lawful, constitutional, or legitimate means; very frequently the term is reserved for those whose power is thought by some faction to be held by unlawful, unconstitutional, or otherwise illegitimate means, often by deposing a previous leader or undermining the rule of a current one.
De facto leaders need not hold a constitutional office, and may exercise power in an informal manner. Their authority cannot be denied however, which forces their position as ruler to be recognized.
Not all
dictators are
de facto rulers. For example,
Augusto Pinochet of
Chile initially came to power as the chairman of a
military junta, which briefly made him
de facto leader of Chile, but then he later amended the nation's constitution and made himself
President, making him the formal and legal ruler of Chile. Similarly,
Saddam Hussein's formal rule of
Iraq is often recorded as beginning in
1979, the year he assumed the
Presidency of Iraq. However, in practice his
de facto rule of the nation began at an earlier date, as during his time as
vice president he exercised a great deal of power at the expense of the elderly
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.
Another example of a
de facto ruler is someone who is not the actual ruler, but exerts great or total influence over the true ruler, which is quite common in monarchies. Some examples of these de-facto rulers are
Empress Dowager Cixi of China (for son
Tongzhi and nephew
Guangxu Emperors), Prince
Alexander Menshikov (for his former lover Empress
Catherine I of Russia),
Cardinal Richelieu of France (for
Louis XIII), and Queen
Marie Caroline of Naples and Sicily (for her husband King
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies).
Some notable true
de facto leaders have been
Deng Xiaoping of the
People's Republic of China and General
Manuel Noriega of
Panama. Both of these men exercised near-total control over their respective nations for many years, despite not having either legal constitutional office or the legal authority to exercise power. These individuals are today commonly recorded as the "leaders" of their respective nations; recording their legal, correct title would not give an accurate assessment of their power. Terms like
strongman are often used to refer to defacto rulers of this sort.
The term
de facto head of state is sometimes used to describe the
governor general in a
Commonwealth Realm, or one who rules
in lieu of the legal (
de jure, or juridical) head of state (e.g.,
British monarch).
The
de facto boundaries of a country are defined by the area that its government is actually able to enforce its laws in, and to defend against encroachments by other countries that may also claim the same territory
de jure; the
line of control in
Kashmir is an example of a de facto boundary. As well as cases of
border disputes,
de facto boundaries may also arise in relatively unpopulated areas when the border was never formally established, or when the agreed border was never
surveyed and its exact position is unclear. The same concepts may also apply to a boundary between provinces or other subdivisions of a
federal state.
Similarly, a nation with
de facto independence, like
Somaliland, is one that is not recognized by other nations or by international bodies, even though it has its own government that exercises absolute control over its claimed territory..
De facto racial segregation often occurs because users of a given facility, such as a library or school, tend to be residents of that neighborhood and so reflect its ethnic makeup. The facility tends to become racially or ethnically segregated without any law calling for
de jure segregation, if the same applies to the neighborhood.
A
de facto monopoly is a system where many suppliers of a product are allowed, but the market is so completely dominated by one that the others might as well not exist. (Similarly for related terms such as
oligopoly and
monopsony.) This is the type of situation that
antitrust laws are intended to eliminate, when they are used.
A
domestic partner outside
marriage is referred to as a
de facto husband or
wife by some authorities. In
Australia and
New Zealand, in contrast to other English-speaking countries,
defacto has become a slang term for one's domestic partner, e.g. "This is my defacto, Rachel". This is equivalent to the term
common-law husband or wife used in most other
English-speaking countries.
De Facto is used as the default mayor name in
SimCity games.
*
List of Latin phrases*
Status quo*
De jure
