BMP4002 Business Law: Legal System for Business

This report covers the classification of UK legal system and its facets such as role of English courts, UK law making process, delegated legislation and employment law. Learn about civil and criminal law, case law, statutory duties of employers, wrongful and unfair dismissal actions.

BMP4002 Business Law
Assessment 1
Legal System for Business
Law
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Contents
Introduction
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Part 1: Classifications of Law p-p
Define laws and identify the respective legal systems in the UK
p
Explanation with examples the following as means of classification
of laws in the English Legal system p-p
a) Civil Law p
b) Criminal Law p
Explanation of the role of the following Courts in the English Legal
system p-p
a) High Court p
b) Supreme Court p
Part 2: Source of law p-p
Explanation of Case Law as a source of laws p
Explanation of the process of making Legislation p
The meaning and examples of Delegated Legislation p
Part 3: UK law making process: Employment Law p-p
Statutory Duties of Employers to their employees p
Wrongful Dismissal and Unfair Dismissal Actions
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Conclusion p
Introduction
Business law is specialization of various concepts relating to business
conduct in the form of rules and regulations. Business law is a set of business
provision derived from various sources such as, customary law, treaties, agreements
and conventions which are used for dealing commercial matters between parties
and countries. Business law is the study of various legislation and laws which
provides the provision for formation of business (Lindsley2020). It provides many
other miscellaneous provisions like merging of company, dissolution of business etc.
Business law covers many business legislation like, contract law, insolvency law,
partnership, antitrust law and many more. The legal system of United Kingdom
includes the process in which laws are interpreted and enforce, the main sources of
UK legal system is common law and the judicial precedents, European law and
international law. In UK the supreme legal authority is parliament which pass the
laws for the nation. UK legal system operates in three jurisdiction; England and
wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This assignment will cover all the relevant
information on classification of UK legal system and its all facets such as , role of
English courts, UK law making process, delegated legislation and employment law.
Part 1: Classifications of Law
Define laws and identify the respective legal systems in the UK
Law is a medium by which human conducts and behavior are governed for
establishing a peaceful and stable society. Law is the collection of principles and
orders which are made for public interest and their welfare. There is no universal
definition of law, but various eminent jurists have attempted to give a definition such
as , Austin, Salmond, Jeremy Bentham, Holland and many more, these are schools
of thoughts who have critically study the idea of law and its impact on the society.
Law is source of providing justice based on wisdom and prudence. It is a critical
reasoning which studies all the facets of given prevailing circumstances of the
society. As per Holland, law is a mandate of external human action enacted by
sovereign political authority (Varuhas 2021.). Whereas, according to Austin, ' law is
the consolidation of various customary laws and usages which are formally
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recognized by supreme political authority. Thus law is a combine set of various rules
which are created for enforcing equally to govern the nation and its people by
governmental institution to prevail and promote equality among the people.
Explanation with examples the following as means of classification
of laws in the English Legal system
a) Civil Law:
Civil law is a major branch which covers all the matters which are of non-
criminal nature. As per common law, the England and Wales the term used for civil
law is non-criminal law. In this, civil wrongs, quasi contract, property law including
theft or vandalism. Civil law can be classified into two categories Substantive law
and Procedural law. Substantive law determines the rights and duties between
parties whereas, procedural law provides provisions relating to institution of suits,
jurisdiction of courts, types of reliefs, types of appeals and many other miscellaneous
provisions for civil cases. In civil law, any person can institute a suit against the
person who has committed civil wrong and can be made liable for such conduct. In
civil law, a person is not put into jail, instead measures are taken to put back both the
parties at position they were before disputes by resolving issues amicably.
Employment law, family law, company law, contract law, personal law are the major
examples of civil law (McEldowney 2018)
b) Criminal Law:
Criminal law are the law of crimes which provides types of offenses and their
punishment as prescribed according to penal law. Crimes are the actions which
affects society negatively and disturb the peace and order which leads to instability
in the society. In United Kingdom, criminal laws are created by parliament. It true that
a crime cannot be discarded completely as it will prevail, but with the help of legal
system such crimes can be prevented by deterring the criminals for their conduct ad
infuse the fear in the society that crimes shall not be excused. Like civil law, criminal
law is divided into two parts, procedural and substantial. Criminal law gives
reasonable opportunity to the suspect to be eligible for fair trail as per the procedure
established by law. Criminal case is proceed by the Crown Prosecution service. If a
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person is found guilty of crime, then such person is punished with the prescribed
punishment. The examples of criminal law are, theft, burglary, rape, murder,
extortion, kidnapping, harassment, discrimination and many more.
Explanation of the role of the following Courts in the English Legal
system
High Court
The High court of United Kingdom is the third largest court, as it deals with the
matters relating to civil cases which are complex and of serious nature. It also hears
appeal of the judgment passed by lower courts. High Court consists of three main
division which are Queens bench, Family court and chancery court, it had district
registries throughout the England and Wales. These three divisions further classified
into several special courts. Queens bench is consider the most biggest division
among all the three division (Laurence 2021). In Queens bench consist of different
special courts which hears the cases of construction, admiralty, administration,
technology and other. Whereas the chancery courts hears the matters of taxation,
land disputes, corporations etc.
Supreme Court:
Supreme court of UK is the highest appellate court for civil and criminal
matters. Its jurisdiction covers all the legal jurisdiction of United Kingdom which are ,
England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The main role of supreme court is to hear the
matters of public, constitutional matters. The other important role is to interpret the
law and to adjudicate the matters which are long kept for consideration in the lower
courts. Supreme court does not held trail normally. Supreme court can also
recommend the parliament to reconsider any law or statute if it finds any fault in such
law or statute. The most important duty and power it has is judicial review, it ensures
and checks that each government institution are functioning within their limits
(Hess,and Harvey 2019).
Part 2: Source of law
Explanation of Case Law as a source of laws
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Case law is the primary source of law in United Kingdom legal system, case
law which is also known as judicial precedents which is recognized under the
principles of stare decisis. Case laws are the judicial rulings of the superior court
which are published in law reports or journals. These law reports are used by lower
courts to citing the reference for adjudication of the case. Case law plays very
important role in deciding the similar subsequent case which depend on the seniority
of the court.
Explanation of the process of making Legislation
The process of making legislation in United Kingdom, begins from the drafting
of bill and its introduction in the either of the house of UK parliament. Any member of
parliament can bring bill in house. At first reading the name of the bill is presented
and in second reading the debate on the principle objectives of the bill is conducted
wherein members are allowed to discuss on specific ares where change is required.
Then comes committee stage in which scrutiny of bill is made and votes are taken to
decide whether to make changes or not, then comes report stage to examine the bill
and makes further change. In this stage also amendments are debated and votes
are taken to decide the changes. Third reading is held to clear all the loopholes in
the bill. In this process, if the lords are of the opinion to bring changes in draft bill, it
is sent to the commons to agree and it is on the Creation of commons to accept or
not. At final stage, the bill is sent for royal asset when both the house have given
their approval on the bill, at last when the bill gets the royal assent it becomes an Act
or law of the land.
The meaning and examples of Delegated Legislation
Delegated legislation is the process of transferring law making power to a
person of authority for making law at any particular jurisdiction. Delegated legislation
is the concept of administration law which is practice for public and national interest.
The application of these legislation is set for certain period of time, because these
legislation are not passed by the parliamentary process (Keyes 2018). These
legislation are also known as secondary legislation. By this a person is empowered
to pass ordinance, by-laws, standards. It is important to delegate legislation because
it enables government to make urgent changes in law without initiating parliamentary
process.
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Part 3: UK law making process: Employment Law
Statutory Duties of Employers to their employees
Employment law of UK imposed various duties and responsibilities of an
employer towards their employees are state below:
 employers are obliged under employment law to provide safe working
environment to their employees.
 Employer must ensure that its employees are provided with all the necessary
equipment sued in their work.
 Employer must avail all the basic amenities at working place for its
employees.
 It is the statutory duty of employer to comply with Employment law and
provide all the rights and benefits to its employees as prescribed by
employment law such as, leave and vacation rights, paternity and maternity
leave, compensation, bonus and may more.
 It is the duty of an employer to make sure that no form of discrimination take
place during course of working with employees.
 An employer must award and encourage its old employees.
 All the employees must be treated fairly and without any biased.
 An employer should not dismiss its employees unlawfully or wrongfully from
employment (McLeish 2020).
 Thus, employment law is the arrangement of rights and duties of employer
toward employees within the legal framework for protecting interests and
rights of employees and employer is bound to morally and legally to avail all
such rights and benefits to its employees (Smith and Kubala 2018).
Wrongful Dismissal and Unfair Dismissal Actions
Wrongful dismissal is the conduct of dismissing an individual from its
employment by breaching the employment contract. In this employee is discarded
wrongfully by employer without serving dismissal notice. Hence, such dismissal is
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wrongful and legal action can be brought against employer for such conduct.
Whereas, unfair dismissal is the dismissal of an employee through unlawful process.
An employee is dismissed from employment even before the completion of
employment contract (Doorey and Hills2022). Therefore, in both the cases legal
action can be brought in the employment tribunal against employer for retention or
compensation.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that law is essential for civilization,
law has an elevated status and supreme before all. Law helps in regulating the
conducts and behavior of human and promotes equality among equals. The UK legal
system is being recognized since 1189, because during that time customary law was
prevalent at local region and with the change of time these customary law replaced
with national law and common to all. The source which helped in development of UK
legal system is the role of judiciary and its ruling. In this report all the relevant extract
in relation to UK legal system is explained. This report has covered the classification
of UK legal system and other relevant facets of it such as, role of English courts, UK
law making process and employment law.
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References
Doorey, D.J. and Hills, A., 2022. Statutory Unfair Dismissal in Canada: What is the
Value of a Lost Job?. Available at SSRN.
Hess, B. and Harvey, A.K., 2019, March. Open Justice in Modern Societies: What
Role for Courts?. In Open Justice (pp. 9-46). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft
mbH & Co. KG.
Keyes, J.M., 2018. Rethinking Judicial Review of Delegated Legislation. Ottawa
Faculty of Law Working Paper, (2019-02).
Laurence, B.K., 2021. Risk-based Regulation in the UK: Courtroom Battles Expose
Ongoing Problems. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 12(3), pp.660-673.
Lindsley, F., 2020. Monitoring the UK Entry Clearance System. In Migration,
Diasporas and Legal Systems in Europe (pp. 305-323). Routledge-
Cavendish.
McEldowney, J., 2018. The UK Supreme Court and Parliament: Judicial and Political
Dialogues. In New Challenges to Constitutional Adjudication in Europe (pp.
214-232). Routledge.
McLeish, H.J., 2020. Should the UK Law Regulate Sporting Matters? A Critical
Investigation on How the UK Can Formally Develop Sports Law to Tackle
the Growing Legal Disputes (Doctoral dissertation, University of the West of
Scotland (United Kingdom)).
Smith, S. and Kubala, P., 2018. Social justice in the workplace: Are on-demand
companies exploiting current regulatory ambiguities and workforce
precarity?. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource
Management, 6(1), pp.166-171.
Varuhas, J.N., 2021. Submission to the UK Government's Independent Review of
Administrative Law. Available at SSRN 3884673.
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