The Laws of England and Wales

Law takes different forms because its been made by different variety of persons, that's why English law has many and different sources the major ones are, EU law, the common law, legislation and human acts law. There has been another source called custom, however custom has been mixed with case law and legislation, all together they are the laws of England and wales.

Case law

Common law (or case law) is a law made by judges, if a law is to be made judges have an important role on making it and developing it, common law happens to appear in England a long time ago in 1066 at the royal council around central London, at that time common law made up of procedural rules, they created a form that was inspired from the Germanic people. At that time Customs were directing all the cases.

The point of custom based law is to give precedential weight to custom based law, so that the consistent principles are going to apply in order to submit the similar facts to the similar outcomes. Along this line judges will not settle on future choices that will ensure that guarantee steady treatment. Nowadays common law means including all case law. Judicial precedent is the source of law where past decisions create law for judges to refer back as advice in other cases. Precedent is based on one principal "stare decisis" which means (let the decision stand). In the court system all the courts are obliging to follow the decision of the court that is higher than them.

At the summit of the court system there is the European court of justice, after the house of lords which basically is the supreme court, if a decision has been made by the supreme court will become binding to all the other courts. Beneath the house of lords is the court of appeal which separates in 2, the civil division and the criminal division. For example, in the case of R v Caldwell in 1982, the defendant was working in a hotel until he got fired, after 1 month he went back to the hotel totally drunk and set fire to the hotel, in the intention of causing damages and harm the hotel and his colleges. but, there were also guests staying in the hotel. He was therefore charged with the intent to endanger human life. The court decided to remove the objective test, as being drunk was not seen as a defence for not being careful. In R v G (2003) it was decided that the defendants should be judged with consideration to their age. Two kids, one aged eleven and the other twelve, were playing behind a shop. They set fire to some newspapers, they thought after leaving the fire would extinguish However, the fire was still up and it spread to the shop. More than £1 million of damages was caused. The boys were had no idea of the damage that they had caused as they had left before the fire spread. As they did not intend the damage the court decided that because their age what they have done should not be taken into account. In their defence, reckless behaviour is where the defendant is aware of the risk, and seeing as the boys did not intend the damage, the objective test was put back in.

Legislation

For a bill to pass it needs to follow a specific procedure it needs to go through house of parliament and beyond, it happens that a bill cannot pass which means it didn't pass all the stages. It is known that the parliament is the supreme law making with considering EU laws. parliament creates a Bill first in order to make it a legislation. Member of parliaments will bring private bills and everyone will be affected by it. There are other bills called Private bills, those will affect special places but they are brought by non-GOV MPs. There will be different stages that the bill has to go throw:

1. First reading

In the first reading, the bill will be read and presented to the parliament.

2. Second reading

Two weeks later, in the commons the bill will be debated after the debate a vote will be placed. If the bill passes the vote, it will go to the next stage.

3. Committee and report stages

At this stage the bill will be discussed in detail with MPs. The bill might get some changes at this stage. Not everyone can discuss the changes of a bill, only specialists. If it's a bill related to health and safety then a it will be discussed by a committee of health and safety.

4. Third reading

The bill will have its last debate in this stage, followed by a final vote.

5. House of lords

In the house of lords they will re-do all the process again and it can be delayed for up to a year. After going throw this proses the bill becomes law after receiving royal approval, but nowadays its just a formality. The Scotland act 1998 to create a Scottish parliament got passed by the parliament, in order to create legislative power over civil law, health ...etc. Persons who are authorised by parliament to enact laws can create devolved legislation, and it must be consistent with enabling act. They can also combine the legislation, by having different statutes under one without changes, like the 1986 Act. The Acts of parliaments and the devolved legislation both of them can pass a legislation, the volume sheer is very important of new laws.EU in 1972 an act was passed called the European communities Act 1972 so that EU law will be a part of British laws which means a new source of law appears . UK courts were obliging to follow EU law following the principles of the court of justice.

The human right act 1998 incorporated the EU and it's a domestic law, the parliament are forced to repeal it because of the Anti-terrorism. Recently on March 2017, the UK is willing to withdraw from the EU which will trigger a procedure called Brexit, if there will be no agreements between the two parties in 2 years, the UK will leave the European union and all the EU law will have no effect to the UK. To sum up, the UK law is affected now that they have joined the European union, if the EU passes a new law they are obliged to have it and follow it, even if the UK wants to write new laws they need to be under EU regulations. The supreme source of law is legislation. Case laws cannot overweight laws made by parliament and devolved legislation, the same with EU law and human rights law they need to be legislated first so that it will be a domestic law. Legislation can review communities and make a fast change that's why it is one of the major pillars in the sources of law.