Key Principles and Functions of the English Legal System
Thinking about the nature of one`s own legal system is a daunting task. In the case of England, this is particularly problematic. Perhaps more than those elsewhere, initial hesitation is a matter of attitude. What is “my country”? The issue triggers a mild identity crisis that affects everyone in the UK, Britain or England. The United Kingdom, as the single sovereign constitutional body, is most evident in the composition of its parliament and is most absent from football and rugby fields in international competitions. Most of the Bodleian Law Library`s British paper collection is located on the ground floor of the library. Legal reports are available at Cw UK 100 and reviews at Cw UK 300. British legal monographs are catalogued with different class marks, making it easy to navigate, this section starts at K to KZ before the main series of legal reports and journals. The legislation on paper can be found on floor 1. A seemingly innocuous request to identify and prioritize its “most important” characteristics within one`s own legal system was a major challenge. The root of the research was an understanding of the idea that the processes and values underlying the legal experiences of different communities can be explained by the idea of a legal system. I have approached the task of describing the functioning of law in one`s own society by referring to characteristics that are sufficiently widespread but privileged exclusively as “legal” to be attributed to a particular form of organization. One example is the merchant of law, derived from the “tarte en poudre” dishes, named after a corruption of French powder-feet (“dusty feet”) that involves ad hoc market dishes.
Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales is not a separate jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. The customary rights of Wales within the Kingdom of England were abolished by the laws of King Henry VIII in Wales, which brought Wales into legal conformity with England. Although Wales now has a devolved Parliament, any legislation it enacts must respect the circumscribed themes of the Government of Wales Act 2006, other Acts of the UK Parliament or an Order of the Council made under the 2006 Act. Home » Resources » UKCLE Newsletter » Previous issues of Directorates » Directions 16 » The three most important features of the English legal system: Accidents of geography and history The common law has always been administered in the King`s courts, and justice has developed as a separate system of mainly discretionary remedies administered by the Lord Chancellor. often to mitigate injustice. committed by inflexible rules of common law. Simple concepts such as trusts are now generally treated as part of the activities of the Chancery Division before the High Court, but since the judicial acts of 1873-75, when the systems of law and equity were amalgamated, they are no longer treated as separate courts and legal and equitable remedies can be provided in all courts. You`ll notice the difference in architecture and language between Seoul, San Juan, or Vienna, but there are significant similarities: people will drive the same type of cars, wear the same type of clothes, and walk the streets with many of the same multinationals. Imagine trying to find someone who says they`re at an intersection with an H&M, McDonald`s, Zara, and Starbucks on every corner.
They could be in virtually any developed country on earth. But scratch the surface and you`ll find that the legal systems that underpin these countries can differ remarkably. Due to the size and influence of the British Empire – which comprises a quarter of the world`s population and nearly a third of its land area at its peak – many countries have legal systems based on that of Britain. However, despite this massive influence around the world, the British legal system retains many peculiarities. In this article, we look at how the British legal system differs from other systems in the world, including cases where it is almost unique. Common law is a term with historical origins in the legal system of England. It refers mainly to the law made by judges, which has developed since the early Middle Ages, as described in a work published in the late 19th century The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I,[26] in which Pollock and Maitland expanded the work of Coke (17th century) and Blackstone (18th century). In particular, the law developed in the English Court of Common Pleas and other common law courts, which also became the law of the colonies established first under the Crown of England or later in the United Kingdom in North America and elsewhere; and this law was developed after these courts were reorganized in England by the laws of the Supreme Court of Justice passed in the 1870s, and developed independently in the legal systems of the United States and other jurisdictions after their independence from the United Kingdom before and after the 1870s.
The term is used secondarily to refer to the law developed by these courts in the same periods (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial), as opposed to the jurisdiction or previous jurisdiction of other courts in England: the Court of Chancery, the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Court of Admiralty. In this context, civil law is the codified system of law that prevails in Europe. Civil law is based on the ideas of Roman law. [a] As part of the process leading up to the Constitutional Reform Act, the government and the judiciary entered into a “concordat” in January 2004. One of the main objectives was to ensure the continuity of the independence of the judiciary. The Concordat also defines which of the Lord Chancellor`s previous functions were “judicial” and now the jurisdiction of the judiciary, which were “administrative” and remain within the purview of the government, and which are “hybrid” and must be divided. According to Montesquieu`s theory of the “separation of powers”, only parliament has legislative power; However, in cases where a law is ambiguous, the courts have the exclusive power to determine its true meaning on the basis of the principles of statutory interpretation. Since the courts do not have the power to legislate, the “legal fiction” is that they “explain” the common law (rather than “create” it). The House of Lords maintained this “declaratory power” in DPP v. Shaw,[35] where Viscount Simonds, in creating the new crime of “conspiracy to corrupt public morals,” asserted that the court had a “residual power to protect the moral welfare of the state.” [36] [37] As Parliament established itself and exercised more and more influence, parliamentary legislation gradually overtook judicial legislation, so that today`s judges can only innovate in certain very narrowly defined areas.
Legal law includes criminal law, civil law and the main areas of extra-statutory civil law. Let`s take a look at this: each jurisdiction has its own laws, judicial systems, lawyers, and judges. However, it is a truism to note that a national legal system is understandable only in the context of other systems. At the empirical level, the English legal system has a specific international resonance. This is most clearly hidden in its imperialist interventions with other European nations around the world. The common law legacy of British rule is complemented by civil conquests. England exported its common law and statutory law to most parts of the British Empire, and many aspects of this system survived after independence from British rule, and the influences are often reciprocal. “English law” before the American Wars of Independence still influences American law and forms the basis of many American legal traditions and principles. Since it is not a civil law system, it does not have full codification. [c] However, most criminal statutes have been codified for common law reasons, both in the interests of security and to facilitate prosecution. [7] [8] For the time being, murder remains a common crime rather than a legal offence.
[9] [d] Perhaps the strangest thing about the British legal system is that Britain has an unwritten constitution. This is something Britain shares with just four other countries: Israel, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Canada, and even these countries have more than one written constitution than Britain.