De facto is a
Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established". It is commonly used in contrast to
de jure (which means "concerning the 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 contrary to a regulation. When discussing a
legal situation,
de jure designates what the law says, while
de facto designates action of what happens in practice. It is analogous and similar to the expressions "for all intents and purposes" or "in fact". The term
de facto as of governments was created after the
Argentine Constitution referred to illegal governments (governing bodies which Argentina did not acknowledge as individual nations) as
de facto governments. The term
de facto may also be used when there is no relevant law or standard, but a common and well established practice that is considered the accepted norm.
Examples
Segregation (during the United States' Civil Rights era)
'De facto'
racial discrimination or
segregation in the USA during the fifties and sixties was simply discrimination that was
not segregation by law (
de jure). Blacks riding in the back of the bus, blacks having to step aside onto the street if not enough room was present for a white person to walk down a sidewalk without running into a black person, and "separate but equal" facilities are instances of
de facto segregation. The
NAACP fought for the de jure law.
Standards
A
de facto standard is a
standard (formal or informal) that has achieved a dominant position, by
tradition,
enforcement, or market dominance. It has not necessarily received formal approval by way of a standardization process, and may not be an official standard document.
For example: band-aid, kleenex, hi-liter, white-out, jeep, etc., are all product brand names used to describe the item in a general way.
National languages
Several
de facto English-speaking countries have no
de jure official national language. In
New Zealand, there are three official languages (English, Maori and sign). In the
United States, twenty-nine
states have declared English the official language, with
Hawaii using
Hawaiian and English as official languages. However, two U.S. states also have
de facto second languages:
Spanish in
New Mexico and
French in
Louisiana.
Russian was the
de facto official language of the central government and, to a large extent, republican governments of the former
Soviet Union, but was not declared
de jure state language until 1990. A short-lived law effected April 24, 1990, installed Russian as the sole
de jure official language of the Union.
Japan is another example of a country with no language recognized
de jure.
Lebanon and
Morocco are two examples where the official language is
Arabic but an additional
de facto language is considered to be
French.
Politics
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 really act in their stead.
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.
Not all
dictators are
de facto rulers. For example,
Augusto Pinochet of
Chile initially came to power as the chairperson 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 for life, 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, his de facto rule of the nation began at an earlier date—during his time as
vice president he exercised a great deal of power at the expense of the elderly, legal ruler,
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 or
dictator are often used to refer to
de facto rulers of this sort.
The term
de facto head of state is sometimes used to describe the office of a
governor general in the
Commonwealth realms, since the holder of that office has the same responsibilities in their country as the
de jure head of state (the
sovereign) does within the
United Kingdom.
In the
Westminster system of government,
executive authority is often split between a
de jure executive authority of a
head of state and a
de facto executive authority of a
prime minister and
cabinet who implement executive powers in the name of the
de jure executive authority. In the United Kingdom, the
Sovereign is the
de jure executive authority, even though executive decisions are made by the
Prime Minister and his
Cabinet on the Sovereign's behalf, hence the term
Her Majesty's Government.
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.
Social sciences and other usages
Other usages
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,
de facto has become a term for one's domestic partner. In Australian law, it is the legally recognized relationship of a couple living together. This is equivalent to
common-law marriage, which is used in most other
English-speaking countries.
See also
