ENGLISH LAW

English Law

English Law

Sources of Legal System:

The lawful schemes inside the United Kingdom were founded mostly on judge-made regulation (law evolved through conclusions by referees essential to conclude situations conveyed before them - called "common law" or case-law) until round the seventeenth century. Each jurisdiction evolved its own types of widespread regulation, with Scotland being particularly distinct from the rest. Since that time, new regulations and regulation restructure have progressively been conveyed about through Acts of Parliament, generally motivated by principles of the Government of the day. Even so, the development of case-law still continues an significant source of law. A declaration of regulation made by a referee in a case can become binding on subsequent referees and can in this way become the regulation for every individual to follow. Whether or not a specific statement (technically called a precedent) by a referee seated in court when concluding a case does become binding (according to the doctrine of "stare decisis" - stand by what has before been decided) on subsequent referees counts on two major factors:

* The pronouncement must be made by a court of sufficient seniority. Basically, judges at the lowest tiers of decision making (often called courts of first instance), are not allowed to issue binding precedents. In these courts there has been a system of official recording and reporting since 1865 (now called the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, which produces The Law Reports and The Weekly Law Reports). There are also many commercial law reports, though most again are confined to decisions of higher courts (such as the All England Law Reports). Here is an expalantion of some case citations you might come across - Lamb [1967] 2 QB 981 (this means a case reported in the Law Reports); Thabo Meli v The Queen [1954] 1 WLR 228 (this means a case reported in the Weekly Law reports); Thornton [1992] 1 All ER 339 (this means a case reported in the All England Law Reports).

* The pronouncement must have formed the ratio decidendi of the case (this is Latin for the reasoning behind the decision). The reasoning must be a matter pertaining to the law rather than a factual decision. In addition, the pronouncement must not be obiter dictum - something said either about the law or the facts of the case which is "by the way", in other words, not strictly necessary for the legal basis for the decisions. Only the ratio decidendi will be binding. It will comprise the legal principles and rules which are necessary to solve the problem before the court. Obiter dicta are not binding, but they may be treated as of "persuasive authority" - later judges are entitled to read them and be influenced by them, but they are not obliged to follow these parts of judicial pronouncements.

Acts of Parliament:

Legislation has become the commonest source of new laws or of law reform since around the Seventeenth century. So when we think of laws in modern ...