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sources of the english law
IMPORTANCES OF COMMON LAW
development of common law
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What are the sources of Law?
United Kingdom is a country with a distinctive set of legal system. It is fairly different from other countries having civil law based legal systems. The legal system in the United Kingdom consists of various sources of law, where other civil law based countries rely only on a written set of law. European influences on the English Legal System came much later in near decades. This essay will aim to examine the development of the English Legal System by reviewing applications of various sources of law in the English Legal System furthermore to discuss the recent European influences on the law of England.
Introduction: English Legal System
The English Legal System is used in the United Kingdom and it plays a significant role in keeping orders within the country; it has the influential ability towards the United States and other commonwealth countries. Many decisions from England are in many jurisdictions are considered as persuasive.
The meaning of English Legal System is stated out by Cownie and Bradley in the English Legal System book . There are many sources that build up the English Law as it is today. The main sources of English Law consist of Common Law, parliamentary legislation and delegated legislation. As stated in Gary Slapper & David Kelly’s English Legal System book , there are many different interpretations of the phrase ‘source of law’ where in this book the law is made up of three main sources; where in Martin Hunt’s “A” Level Law , though there are different sources that make up the English law, these sources are differentiated in two main categories with various minor sources.
History of Common Law
Before 1066, all laws were local and enforced in manorial, shire, hundred court...
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... Supreme Court of Justice (formerly known as the House of Lords). Courts that are considered as higher courts in the hierarchy of courts would be the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
Based on Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 , the High Court is divided into few specialist divisions which are the King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer and Admiralty Division.
Where the Magistrates Court, Crown Court and the County Court are considered as inferior courts; both civil and criminal divisions of courts have little difference. The court hearing first instance of a criminal case is the Magistrates Court. However, when there is a case concerning on a more serious criminal offence, the case would be first heard in the Crown Court instead. First instance of civil cases are usually tried in the Magistrates Court and rarely in the County Court.
Court Hierarchy: Disadvantages
In this essay I am going to discuss the magistrates and the crown court, and their function within the court hierarchy. The crown court is seen to deal with more serious offences referred to as indictable offences, which carry a higher sentence. Whereas the magistrates court deals with summary offences, carrying a lesser sentence than other courts in its division. Both courts are part of the criminal justice system, and deal with disputes between individuals and the state.
In America we have common law just like Canada. Article III of the constitution is what established the judicial system. The bottom is just the local courts and then state courts. There is also the federal court system where judges are nominated by the president then confirmed by the Senate. These courts include: the 94 district courts, Tax court, Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Court of Claims, and Court of Military Appeals. With most courts of the United States, juries are the ones who decide whether one is guilty or not. The constitution calls for the creation of the Supreme Court and leaves the responsibility of creating the inferior courts to Congress.
Legislation and the Common law are not separate and independent sources of law. They exist in a symbiotic relationship. Symbiotic relationship refers to the two different sources of legal norms that provide the sum of rules establish system as a whole. (Brodie v Singleton Shire Council (2001) 206 CLR 512, 532 [31])
In the Court Hierarchy System, there are six courts all together. The names of each from the highest and most powerful court to the lowest, are:
The high court is also known as at the guardian of the constitution and the rule of law. Within the hierarchy of courts, the high court is ranked as the highest within the Australian judicial system.
Now, the district court system is the beginning step of the judicial system. A good amount of the case handled by the district court system is either criminal or civil trial cases. According to Roger Miller, “trial courts that have general jurisdiction as to the subject matter may be called county, district, superior, or circuit courts.” The majority of their cases are to be handled in-county first before proceeding further through the court system. Just as businesses and organizations have a chain-of-command or protocol system the government has the
The American Court System is an important part of American history and one of the many assets that makes America stand out from other countries. It thrives for justice through its structured and organized court systems. The structures and organizations are widely influenced by both the State and U.S Constitution. The courts have important characters that used their knowledge and roles to aim for equality and justice. These court systems have been influenced since the beginning of the United State of America. Today, these systems and law continue to change and adapt in order to keep and protect the peoples’ rights.
The court system was used by Queen Elizabeth to display her power. There were three
•At the beginning of the 19th century there were 3 types of law in England:
Judiciary.gov.uk. 2014. Judges, Tribunals and Magistrates | Introduction to the justice system | Traditions of the courts. [online] Available at: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/introduction-to-justice-system/court-traditions [Accessed: 2 Apr 2014].
The US court system consists of a trial court, an appellate court, and a supreme or high court. The trial court is the first to hear the facts of a case and has original jurisdiction. The appellate court hears cases whose resolution is disputed by the losing party in the trial court. The supreme or high court hears cases whose outcome is disputed by the losing party in the appellate court. The supreme or high court chooses which cases warrant a hearing. The federal and the state court system have the same basic structure. Each consists of a trial court, an appellate court, and a supreme or high court. The Federal Court of Appeals has thirteen (13) circuits which cover most states except the District of Columbia. The federal system also has specialty courts such as the Court of Federal Claims and the United States Tax Court.
Common law is the concept that some of the core principles that form the basis of the English legal system come from judges as opposed to Parliament, with rulings from case to case developing predicedent, which forces lower courts to follow princaples set by higher cores but allows higher courts to overrule the descisions of lower courts. This allows the courts, over time to refine law. The courts can even decide to ignore rulings when considering to set it as precident with enough justification, this allows rooms for special cases. As a drawback to common law, the courts are sometimes unwilling to overrule long standing precidents. Slapper,...
The English legal system is ostensibly embedded on a foundation of a ‘high degree of certainty with adaptability’ based on a steady ‘mode’ of legal reasoning. This rests on four propositions
Everyone know that Law is a system of rules which are developed in community with a aim to govern a society maintaining, justice, protect individuals and property. There are a lot of countries and they have own set of rules and norms including itself constitutional, criminal, contract, trust, international, tort, administrative and property. During the long time law improving and developing a lot and become more invulnerable and fair. Therefore, in a modern society and most of countries law has become similar with similar legal system. Nowadays there are several general types of legal system in the world and two main most popular of them, which had mostly spread through the world. They
The rule of law, simply put, is a principle that no one is above the law. This means that there should be no leniency for a person because of peerage, sex, religion or financial standing. England and Wales do not have a written constitution therefore the Rule of Law, which along with the parliamentary Sovereignty was regarded by legal analyst A.C Dicey, as the pillars of the UK Constitution. The Rule of Law was said to be adopted as the “unwritten constitution of Great Britain”.