UK Legal System and Law Making Process: A Study of Business Law

This report explores the UK legal system and law making process in the context of business law. It covers classifications of law, sources of law, and the role of courts in the English legal system. It also studies employment law and the statutory duties of employers to their employees.

BMP4002 Business Law
Assessment 1
Legal System for Business
Law
1

Contents
Introduction 2
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
Conclusion p
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Introduction
To govern the functioning of businesses in the United Kingdom there is
company act which regulates all the functioning of all the business organization in
UK. To enforce the company act before this various statutes are already got enacted
such as; Insolvency Act, 1986, Corporate governance act of UK and also there were
Directives of European Union. From the guidelines of all these statutes the
parliament of the United Kingdom reached at that position which enables such act to
provide the legal framework to all the business organizations (Al-Haidar, 2018). The
parliament of UK played a crucial role while providing the company act, it is one of
the largest act of UK which contains 1300 sections and 16 schedules. Under these
sections and schedules various provisions are given which provides the guidelines to
regulate the functioning of business companies and to show the path of doing
business legally. This report with the template cover various topic regarding the UK
legal system, the law making process in UK, classification of laws, discussion will be
made on High Court and on Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. There are
various sources of UK laws such as legislation which covers the parliament and the
monarchical structure of UK. In the end of report the employer- employee relation will
be discuss in the light of an Employment Act.
Part 1: Classifications of Law
Define laws and identify the respective legal systems in the UK
Laws are the set of rules and regulations which control the behavior of the
human beings. There are so many laws which were enacted to bring peace in the
world, and to make the laws it require the sufficient legal system which make the
laws and also enforce it according to the situation. UK have the parliamentary form
of governance and the powers are delegated in three main authorities i.e.
Legislation, Executive and the Judiciary. The parliament of UK have two houses
which are responsible to pass the bill and send it to the Monarch. There is no written
constitution of the United Kingdom not even the single document was written and
also it is in mixed form which contains the style of democratic, aristocracy and
monarchical values. The process of making the constitution was started from very
last and in the starting the charter of Magna Carta was introduced then, the Bills of
Rights, 1689 and with lot of efforts there was an enactment of the European Union
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Act, 2018. Apart from these laws there are many conventions which hold the
important position to make the constitution.
Explanation with examples the following as means of classification
of laws in the English Legal system
a) Civil Law:
Civil laws are the part of country's set of rules which is concerned with the
private affairs of citizens. These laws are different from the criminal laws as these
laws are concerned with the rights and property of an individual or an organization's.
Civil laws are enforced when the rights of an individual got infringed by another
individual or some corporate body (Al-Haidar, 2018). In the remedy to the party who
suffered, they provide the compensation and there is no provision of serious
punishment like prison but, it makes the person liable for their mistake and claim
compensation from them. There are such areas where civil laws have the
jurisdiction to deal with such as; family disputes, personal injury, breach of contract
and the employment law. In civil laws the defendants have the duty of care towards
the claimant and the burden of proof is on claimant. For example; an employer has a
duty of care towards the employee's, if an employee got injured at workplace then
the solicitor of the claimant has to prove that due to breach the duty of care the injury
caused to the claimant.
b) Criminal Law:
Criminal laws have some other ares where it deals. They are governing such
acts which relates to offenses and breaching the duty which affect the whole society
and not just on person. Unlike civil laws, criminal laws enforces when one party not
only infringed the right of another party but also hurt them or threat them with their
actions. These laws are much serious then the civil laws as in these cases there is
not only the loss of rights of an individual or the rights of the property but also there
are some personal injuries and which affect the whole society. There are some acts
or the offences in which the criminal laws should apply like; sexual assault, murder,
fraud, money laundering and drug dealing etc. Under these laws the provision of
punishment are also of serious nature there is not only the compensation for the
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criminal act but also the offender got punish under prison fro several years and if the
crime is of heinous in nature then, there will be a death sentence under criminal laws
(Cameron, and Strath, 2020).
Explanation of the role of the following Courts in the English Legal
system
a) High Court:
Prior to the term of High Court in UK there is House of Lords for the appeals
and later on the the court got separated fro the common law and then, the High
Court of parliament become the highest court of royal justice and the House of Lords
become the separate house in the late 14th century. The judicial system of the High
Court of England & Wales is divided into three divisions; The Chancery, Queen's
Bench and The Family. The Chancery court deals with criminal cases, family court
deals with matter related to the property and marriage and the Crown's court deals
with the serious crime matters. The High Court is the third largest court in the UK,
and it deals with the civil matters only and also hear the appeals or the decisions
made by the lower courts. The High Court of UK is based on London at the “Royal
court of Justice” but, it has district registries in England & Wales.
b) Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal fro all
the civil as well as fro all the criminal matters. The Supreme Court also plays the
crucial role for the society as it also hear the cases for the greatest public interest
which affect the whole population.
Part 2: Source of law
Explanation of Case Law as a source of laws
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The case laws comes under the primary sources laws after legislation. These
are the judgments which were recorded in the Reporter series of the United
Kingdom, these are the judgments of the Supreme Court which assist the judges of
High Court or the other subordinate court to use their judgments as laws in the
similar matters only. There is a Doctrine of Precedents which is known as the case
law. This doctrine binds the lower court to follow the judgments which already been
decided by the Supreme Court or the High Court but, this doctrine will only in use
when the case is of similar nature (Charlson, 2020). These case laws were not to be
overruled by the courts only the Apex Court have the power to go beyond the case
laws and it also overruled its own judgments. Apart from the case laws there is
another provision which is similar to the case laws is the Persuasive Precedents but
these case laws were not be use like the Doctrine of precedents because they were
use when the matter is not of the similar nature and the option available for the
persuasive precedents in the virtual property.
Explanation of the process of making Legislation
This is the foremost primary source of laws under which all the laws would be
make. In the United Kingdom, there is a parliamentary form of governance and the
duty to make the laws for the state is on the parliament only. The parliament of UK
consist of two House i.e. House of Commons and the House of Lords. These two
houses have the responsibility to to deal with the bills in stage wise and either accept
the bill and send it for the royal assent or the bill can be rejected otherwise. There
some stages in which both the houses have to deal with the bill and decide whether
the bill is in the position to make it as a law or not (Durant, 2022).
 In the first stage which was placed in the chamber where the name of the bill
got introduced.
 After deciding the name of bill, in this stage discussion has been made on bill
and examine the bill to find the area of correction.
 When the changes were done by the houses of all the members then, again
members go through the bill completely and then, votes will decide that bill
required more changes or not.
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 Some more opportunities are provided to the members to examine the bill for
the modification if required.
 In the fifth stage vote will decide to do the amendments and passing the bill.
 If any changes was made by the House of Lords then, those changes would
be convey to the House of Commons and take the acceptance from it. Either
the House of commons accept the changes or some more changes has been
made by them and again send it to the House of Lords to verify and this
procedure will goes on till both the houses got satisfied (Davies, 2018).
 When both the houses were agreed on bill amendments and after that no
changes are required then, the bill has been send for the Royal Assent to the
Monarch who is the Queen of England. After getting the assent from the
Monarch then only, the bill becomes law.
The meaning and examples of Delegated Legislation
In general the meaning of delegation is distribution and delegated legislation
means “ transferring or distributing the power of law making”. On this there is a
maxim also; Delegata potestas non potest delegari, it means once the power got
delegated or distributed it will not be delegated afterwards. The meaning of
delegation was firstly published in Black's Law dictionary.
Part 3: UK law making process: Employment Law
Statutory Duties of Employers to their employees
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In UK, there is an act which came into force to build the relationship between
the employer and the employee's. To enact such law the efforts was made from the
late centuries because there is a complaint of exploitation of the employee's or the
workers by their employer's. There are mainly three sources of UK Employment law;
 Common Law- It is not a proper law its an agreement or the law of contract
between the employer and the employee's and also it comes under the law of
tort. Under this the employer will be held liable for the negligence of their
employee's (Dickens, 2020).
 Statute- Various times an efforts was made to bring such law, from the late
1970s several statutes are made in the same subject matter.
 European Law- These are the laws which helps the domestic law of UK at the
time of failure.
Wrongful Dismissal and Unfair Dismissal Actions
There is a great exploitation of the employee's by the employers at workplace,
and the wrongful dismissal and the unfair dismissal actions are an example of this.
The employer were uses the employee's for their benefits and threw them like a
trash when their task got completed. Even at the time of dismissal they were not
using the legal or proper procedure to remove the employee's from their work. Under
Employment Law of UK under section 108 to 110 strict action was mentioned against
the employer for using an illegal process to remove the employee's and to wrongfully
dismiss the employee's (Doorey, and Hills, 2022).
Conclusion
The above report has three parts which cover the legal system of the United
Kingdom. In the very first part of the above report the discussion was made under the
topic of Classification of law, under that legal system of the United kingdom got
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discussed with the main classification of UK law i.e. Civil Law and criminal Law. In
the same part the role of UK High Court and the functioning of the Supreme Court
was mentioned. After that, the report started its part two which covers various topic
under the main heading which is Sources of Law. Under this heading process of
making legislation, case laws as the source of law and the meaning of delegated
legislation got explained briefly. In the last part of the report, it cover some provisions
of UK Employment Law in which statutory duties of employer's towards the
employee's and the unfair dismissal of the employee's got covered to end the report.
References
Al-Haidar, F., 2018. Administrative disciplinary and grievance procedures for public
employees in Kuwait and UK. International Journal of Law and
Management, 60(3), pp.842-853.
Al-Haidar, F., 2018. Whistleblowing in Kuwait and UK against Corruption and
Misconduct. International Journal of Law and Management.
Cameron, K. and Strath, J., 2020. Glaxo gets puffed out: UK High Court finds colour
purple not distinctive for asthma inhaler. Journal of Intellectual Property Law
& Practice.
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Charlson, J., 2020. Briefing: Brexit and UK construction law: past, present and
future. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Management,
Procurement and Law, 174(1), pp.3-6.
Davies, G., 2018. Court of Appeal High Court: Extradition, forum bar and concurrent
jurisdiction: Is the case of Love a precedent for trying hackers in the UK?
Lauri Love v (1) The Government of the United States of America (2) Liberty
[2018] EWHC 172. The Journal of Criminal Law, 82(4), pp.296-300.
Dickens, B.M., 2020. Paid surrogacy abroad does not violate public policy: UK
Supreme Court. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 150(1),
pp.129-133.
Doorey, D.J. and Hills, A., 2022. Statutory Unjust Dismissal in Canada: What is the
Value of a Lost Job?. King's Law Journal, pp.1-27.
Durant, A., 2022. Peter Goodrich, Advanced Introduction to Law and Literature
(Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton MA, USA), 2021. pp. 119.
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