UK Law: Classification, Sources, and Characteristics

Business Law
Introduction
Answer 1.
Classification of UK law-

I. The definition of law is defined in UK as, the rule or the set of rules which is enforceable by
the court and regulate by the government, which maintains the relationship between the organs
of the government and also the subject of the state.
II. The law of United Kingdom is classified into two PARTS;
 Public law- it is a law, which governs the relationship between the individual and the
state. The law related to criminal, constitutional and the administrative law is covered
under the public laws.
 Private law- the law which governs the relationship between the individual’s or between
the individuals and the organization. In this type of laws, such acts are covered like
contract law, law of tort, law of property and the law related to family(Goet 2019).
III. The legal system of the UK is applied into the three countries i.e. England and Wales,
Northern Island and the Scotland. They have separate jurisdiction, and each jurisdiction has
its own court system and legal profession. After the labor government came into power it
starts the powers of devolution which means, shifting the few areas of government t to the
countries forming the United Kingdom.
Answer 2.
Sources of UK law;
The UK law has many sources from which the law of the United Kingdom was
constitute. The source of law that includes legislation, common law, European Union law,
the delegated legislation and the European Convention on Human rights(Massey, 2018).
 Legislation- it is the law which is created by the two house of the UK parliament, i.e. the
House of Common and the House of Lord. It is the only body which has power to pass the
laws which are applied in all four countries;
In the House of common, there are 650 members of the parliament, they got appointed by
the election through the vote given by the citizens of United Kingdom and,
In the House of Lords there are approx 800 members, among them 600 are formally
appointed by the Queen of UK on the recommendation of the Prime Minister’s.
 Common Law- the law of UK has been derived from the decision of the judges or the courts.
The legal system of the UK is come under the common law, it means the decision of the
Supreme Court or any high court decisions will become the laws for the subordinate courts.
The decision of the higher court will bound all the subordinate court to follow that judgment
as a law but only in a similar matter.
 Delegated Legislation- such types of laws are made by the ministers, it is an act of the
parliament which gives the authority to the ministers to make legal provisions. They don’t
have a right to make a law as legislation but, they can add the legal provisions (Sanseverino,
2021).

 European Convention on Human rights- according to the Human rights act of
1998, all the courts in the UK are enabled to protect the rights which are mentioned in
the European convention on Human Rights(ECHR).
II. The UK has the longest parliament, in the term of the legislative the UK is a non federal
state which comprises of three different states(England, Scotland, Northern Island).
Although, the constitution of the UK is not codified, certain rules, conventions and
regulations are considered as the constitutional documents in UK , and these documents
determine the working of the UK. As , discussed above about the sources of law, there are
some characteristics of these sources of law:
Constitution:
 The basic feature of the UK constitution is that it is Unwritten. But in UK there are
other related documents to the constitution, which constitutes the rule of the UK.
There is no accurate document which can be referred as the British Constitution.
The reason, behind the unwritten constitution of UK is, it is founded on the basis of
the political traditions and the customs which were not codified anywhere. There
are some other historical documents such as the Magna Carta 1215, petition of
rights 1689 and the parliamentary acts of 1911, these laws in UK are written
(Haines, 2018).
 Another characteristic of the UK constitution is that, it is a mixed constitution. It
means, the constitution contains the Monarchical, aristocratic and the democratic
values.
Common Law-
 It represents the law of the courts in expressed as the judicial decision. The
judges of the subordinate court will found in precedents by the judgments
of the Supreme Court, which are based on the statutes.
 Another characteristic is, the common law is trial by the Jury and through
the doctrine of the supremacy of the law. The supremacy is not only mean
the King but it means, the act of the governmental bodies to identify the
ordinary legal proceedings (Andelman, 2021).
Delegated legislation-
 These laws are made by the bodies to whom the parliament allotted the
power of making laws.
 It was made as per the act of the Principal Parliamentary, under which
there is a provision for the subsidiary legislation.
 It has many administrative details to ensure about the provisions of the
act will operate successfully.
 It can be control by the Government bodies, local council and through
courts also(Gooberman, 2022).
European Conventions on the Human rights-
 It s the first council of the Europe’s convention and the cornerstone of
all the activities.
 It oversees the implementation of the convention in the 1947 council.