For historical reasons, as a kingdom of separate countries, the United Kingdom does not have a unified legal system. There is a system of law for England and Wales, a second in Scotland and a third for Northern Ireland. Welsh law was added in 2007, with Parliament's passage of the Government of Wales Act 2006. The Supreme Court commonly sits above these as the final court of appeal.
The term English law refers to the legal system administered by the courts of England and Wales, which rule on civil and criminal matters and are based on the principles of common law that can be described as having its own legal doctrine.
The law of Northern Ireland is similarly a common law system administered by the courts of Northern Ireland. The law within the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland has close ties with English law, the rules of common law having been imported into Northern Ireland under English rule.
The sources of law in Northern Ireland are Irish common and statute law. However, regarding Northern Ireland statute law, the Parliaments of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland are in force, as well as the Northern Ireland devolved Assembly statutes. The Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland leads the courts of Northern Ireland, which consist of the Courts of Appeal, the High Courts of Justice and the Crown Courts of Northern Ireland.
However, the Supreme Court within the UK is the highest in the land for criminal and civil appeal cases in Northern Ireland. Any decision made by the Supreme Court is binding on every other court in the same jurisdiction and often has a persuasive effect within the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom.
In medieval times, within what was to become known as the UK, Law was vested within the Church of England, which based the early legislation of the UK upon the Ten Commandments. Law was primarily based upon case law through the formation of historical precedence formulated regionally through various courts.
Summary law conclusions were brought to the fore through the four Inns of Court based in central London (Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn and Middle Temple). However, with the evolution of Parliament, which opened on 15th June 1215, the Palace of Westminster has been the centre of legislative power within the UK for over 900 years.
The supreme legislative body of the UK is Parliament, the Crown dependencies, and all British Overseas Territories. Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and ultimate power over all political bodies in the UK, the Crown dependencies and all British Overseas Territories. Parliament is made up of three parts, consisting of the following:
- House of Commons (the primary chamber).
- House of Lords.
- Sovereign (Crown-in-Parliament).
The House of Commons and the House of Lords meet in separate chambers at the Palace of Westminster. The House of Commons is an elected chamber of 650 single-member constituencies, with elections held at least every five years.
All government ministers, including the prime
minister, by constitutional convention are members of the House of Commons. Cabinet
ministers primarily originate from the House of Commons but can originate from
either the House of Commons or the House of Lords with the result that they are
accountable to their respective legislature bodies. However, the House of Lords
has two different categories of members:
- The Lords Spiritual consists of the most senior bishops of the Church of England.
- The Lords Temporal consist mainly of life peers appointed by the sovereign, sitting either by holding a royal office or election by the hereditary peers.
Before the October 2009 opening of the Supreme Court, the House of Lords performed a judicial role through the Law Lords. The UK's supreme legislative power lies officially in the Crown-in-Parliament. However, the Crown usually acts on the advice of the prime minister. The authorities of the House of Lords can only delay legislation. Therefore, power is ultimately vested in the House of Commons.
Within the UK, legislation consists of:
- Primary Legislation: referring to laws passed by the legislative bodies of the UK. However, it also includes Acts passed by historical parliaments.
- Secondary Legislation: which is delegated legislation made by a person or body. It is referred to as subordinate legislation, enshrined under an authority within primary legislation.
- By-Laws: that concern a localised area within the UK that are overseen by Parliament but are created and enacted by local government authorities such as county, unitary, or town councils.
- Case Law: that has been recorded in Law Reports and provides the bulk of law that may be referred to within the United Kingdom when legal precedence is required, for example, when considering the facts and merits of a case before being brought and heard in a law court.
Acts are a source of law through the mechanism and hierarchy of the doctrine of the court and are bound by the decisions of the court above them within the law court hierarchy or at least by a court of equivalent standing. Higher courts have the power to overturn the findings of a lower court and, in some instances, can overrule themselves when an area of case law is reconsidered in the light of new evidence.
The Judicature Acts of 1873-1875 created the court hierarchy, finalised when the House of Lords became the final Court of Appeal due to the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 in England. The modern doctrine of the binding amenity of judicial precedent only fully emerged when law reporting became more formalised within the judicial court hierarchy.
Case
Law reporting in Law Reports was regulated in the late nineteenth century.
Before 1865, Barristers attended hearings, wrote up and published Case Law as
they saw fit, and were generally referred to as 'nominate reports'. The sheer
volume of these reports and the uncertainty about what constituted an
authoritative report of a judgment led to the establishment of the Incorporated
Council of Law Reporting (ICLR). The ICLR publishes Official Law Reports within
the UK.
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