Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 47 views

    2 - The British Legal System

    Uploaded by

    STAN GABRIELA ELENA
    The United Kingdom has four separate legal systems - English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and Welsh law. However, Welsh law is not truly a separate system. There is overlap between the legal systems and jurisdictions of England/Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which hears civil cases from all jurisdictions and criminal cases from England/Wales and Northern Ireland. The legal systems developed separately due to the historical union of previously independent countries.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    2 - The British Legal System

    Uploaded by

    STAN GABRIELA ELENA
    47 views4 pages
    The United Kingdom has four separate legal systems - English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and Welsh law. However, Welsh law is not truly a separate system. There is overlap between the legal systems and jurisdictions of England/Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which hears civil cases from all jurisdictions and criminal cases from England/Wales and Northern Ireland. The legal systems developed separately due to the historical union of previously independent countries.

    Original Title

    2_The British Legal System

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The United Kingdom has four separate legal systems - English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and Welsh law. However, Welsh law is not truly a separate system. There is overlap between the legal systems and jurisdictions of England/Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which hears civil cases from all jurisdictions and criminal cases from England/Wales and Northern Ireland. The legal systems developed separately due to the historical union of previously independent countries.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    47 views4 pages

    2 - The British Legal System

    Uploaded by

    STAN GABRIELA ELENA
    The United Kingdom has four separate legal systems - English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and Welsh law. However, Welsh law is not truly a separate system. There is overlap between the legal systems and jurisdictions of England/Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which hears civil cases from all jurisdictions and criminal cases from England/Wales and Northern Ireland. The legal systems developed separately due to the historical union of previously independent countries.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    ORGANISATION OF JUSTICE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

    The United Kingdom has four legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical
    area for a variety of historical reasons: English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007,
    purely Welsh law (as a result of the passage of the Government of Wales Act 2006 by Parliament).
    However, unlike the other three, Welsh law is not a separate legal system per se, merely the primary
    and secondary legislation generated by the Welsh Parliament, interpreted in accordance with the
    doctrines of English law and not impacting upon English common law (except where such Welsh
    legislation ousts a common law rule by virtue of being a superior form of law).

    There is a substantial overlap between these three legal systems and the three legal jurisdictions of
    the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Each legal system defaults
    to its jurisdiction. Choice of which jurisdiction's law to use is possible in private law: for example, a
    company in Edinburgh, Scotland and a company in Belfast, Northern Ireland are free to contract in
    English law. This is not so in public law (for example, criminal law), where there are set rules of
    procedure in each jurisdiction. Overarching these systems is the law of the United Kingdom. UK law
    arises from laws applying to the United Kingdom and/or its citizens, most obviously constitutional
    law, but also other areas, for instance tax law.

    The United Kingdom does not have a single legal system because it was created by the political union
    of previously independent countries. Article 19 of the Treaty of Union, put into effect by The Acts
    of Union in 1707, created the Kingdom of Great Britain but guaranteed the continued existence of
    Scotland's and England's separate legal systems. The Acts of Union of 1800, which joined Great
    Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, contained no equivalent
    provisions but preserved the principle of different courts to be held in Ireland, of which the part called
    Northern Ireland continues to follow as part of the United Kingdom.

    The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest court in the land for all criminal and civil
    cases in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and for all civil cases in Scots law. The Supreme
    Court is also the final court (in the normal sense of the term) for interpreting United Kingdom law.
    Note, however, that, unlike in some other systems (for example, the United States), the Supreme
    Court cannot strike down statutes and its precedents can be expressly overridden by Parliament, by
    virtue of the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty. The Supreme Court came into being in October
    2009, replacing the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.

    Page 1 of 2
    In England and Wales, the court system is headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales,
    consisting of the:
     Court of Appeal,
     High Court of Justice (for civil cases)
     Crown Court (for criminal cases)

    The Courts of Northern Ireland follow the same pattern. In Scotland the chief courts are the Court
    of Session, for civil cases, and the High Court of Justiciary, for criminal cases. Sheriff courts, as they
    deal with both criminal and civil caseloads, have no equivalent outside Scotland.

    Certain tribunals for administrative law cases have UK-wide jurisdiction, notably those dealing with
    immigration—the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) and Special Immigration
    Appeals Commission—military and national security, competition and intellectual property, and a
    few others. Similarly, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has jurisdiction throughout Great Britain but
    not in Northern Ireland.

    The structure of the courts within England and Wales


    .

    Page 2 of 2

    You might also like