UK Legal System: Categorisation of Law, Sources of Law and Law Making Process

This report explains the UK legal system, categorisation of law, sources of law and law making process. It covers civil law, criminal law, case law, delegated legislation and contract law's impact on businesses.

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INTRODUCTION
The word law signifies the rules and regulations which binds the whole country. It is a
legal framework of rules created and enforced by the government institutions which regulates the
behaviour of the essential element of the society which is human. It keeps a check on the
elements of the society, their conduct and makes sure that everyone is treated equally in respect
to the enacted law. The term itself says justice, rights of an individual, morality etc. In context to
United Kingdom's legal framework, this report will illustrate important topics such as
Classification of law, Sources of law and UK law making process.(Broadhurst, S. and
Harkiolakis, N., 2021) The above stated topics will include definition of laws and legal system of
UK, explanation of civil law and criminal law, role of courts, case laws, the process of making
legislation, delegated laws and few examples of how law making process of UK have a direct
effect on business organisations.
Part 1: Categorisation of law
Elaborate laws and state the legal systems in the UK:
The rules or a set of rules enforceable by a country's government institutions which binds
the whole country. Its makes sure that the activities or the conduct of an individual or a group
within the country is executed under certain rules which keeps a check of the compliance of
those enacted rules which everyone residing in the country has to follow. (Dean, O. and
Marshall, S., 2020)The UK's constitution is partly written and wholly uncodified. The English
law mainly comprises of Common law system which is developed on the basis of two sources
named as Primary source and the Secondary source. Primary sources comprises of Acts of
parliament and Case laws, secondary sources comprises of debates, law journals, legal
encyclopedia, textbooks etc.
The UK refers to constitutional monarchy in which Monarch is considered head of the
state. The legal system of UK is classified into three category that are Northern Ireland,England
and Wales and Scotland and each of them has their own history, legal system and area. (Hayes,
S.L. and Wilson, C., 2018)England and Wales operates ordinary law system which is used to
combines the passing of legislations and formation of judicial precedents using case laws. The
parliament of the country established law by passing of legislation. The house of Parliament is
divided into two halves named as the house of Lords and the House of Commons. The court

system and the case laws are controlled by the judiciary system of the country which is a
separate body from the parliament.
Explain Civil Law and Criminal Law as means of categorisation of laws in the English Legal
system along with the examples:
Criminal law: It is a legal body which deals with the criminal offences which affects the society
and punishments for them. It is quite evident that the government or the authority of the state is
responsible for the burden of proof as the public interest was affected due to the criminal
offence. The defendant has a right to ask for an appeal in the higher court in the case of the
above law. For an example, a person commits murder on the streets of UK. (Johnson, D.,
2020)The criminal offence affects the society's general interest which makes it quite obvious that
the burden of proof is held by the government. If it is proved once that the victim is guilty then
the victim has to bear the punishment given by the court or can file an appeal in the higher court.
The punishments for these offences are incarceration, fines or death sentence. It depends on the
intensity of the act.
Civil Law: This law is used for dealing the disputes that occurs in between organisations and
individuals in which the compensation is provided to the individual who get more suffered from
the dispute. Under this law private interest is affected which makes it evident that the burden of
proof lies on plaintiff. (Oxford Analytica, 2019)The punishment in this law is the compensation
for the damages or injuries caused to the plaintiff. For example, if a person trespasses into
someone's house and causes any damage to the property which affects the private interest of the
other person, the correct remedy would be the compensation for the damages to the plaintiff.
The role of the Supreme court and the High court in the English Legal system:
High court: It refers to the third highest court of United Kingdom. It generally deals with
civil cases and appeals of decision made by the lower courts. The court is bound by the doctrine
of stare decisive which says that the decision taken by the supreme court for an important course
bounds all the lower courts. Any appeal from the high court's decision is firstly passed to the
Court of appeal and then to the final court which is Supreme court. The high court is diversified
into three divisions and they are:
 Queen's Bench division: It is the division which hears a large number of common law
cases as well as acts like supervisory power over the lower courts.

 Family division: This division is used to solve the personal matters of the societyor
individual which is related to divorce, children, medical treatment. It is more valauable
only to the parties but may concern life and death.
 Chancery division: This division of the high court hears the cases regarding business
activities, probate law, insolvency and land law. It deals with the business law which
includes everything in it.
Supreme court: It refers to the final court in order to make appeal as well as it plays an crucial
role for the improvement of United Kingdom as the judicial precedents provided by the Supreme
court is of binding nature which is always kept into consideration in the similar cases which acts
as a binding law over the lower courts. The appeal related to an arguable points of law is hear by
the supreme court which is of general public importance, greatest public and constitutional
importance. It holds the supreme power among the hierarchy of courts for which it has to
maintain and develop as the highest judiciary power in the United Kingdom.
Part 2: Source related to law
Case Law as a source of laws:
It is the original source of law which is derived from the previous judicial precedents.
The doctrine of stare decisive is the basis for the common law system which says that most of the
courts are bound with their own previous decisions in similar cases.(Summerfield, G., 2020)
Case Law is concerned with the unique disputes resolved by the courts with the help of concrete
facts which makes it an important leading case in order to take reference from it when the similar
case appears in the court. The judgements of the important cases are recorded and then published
in law reports. For example if there is a case which is grievous in nature and consists of facts
which has affected the society a lot. The case is the one which is new for the court and hasn't
appeared in the court till the date. The judgement of the case given by the judges while
considering the concrete set of facts is recorded and is set as a judicial precedent which acts as a
binding law over lower courts. The judgement recorded is then considered as a case law which is
used by the courts in the similar cases.

Legislation making process:
A Bill refers to a starting point of legislation making process. A bill passed by the houses
of parliament which gains the royal assent of the monarch is then converted into law. There are
two houses in the parliament named as, The House of Lords is known as the upper house and
The House of Commons is known as the lower house (Zhongming, Z. and et. al., 2021).When a
bill is passed by either of the two houses there are certain steps which takes place before the bill
is converted into the law.
First reading: In this step the bill introduced is an official note which states a new proposed law
and what it is all about. Then MPs gets some time to discuss and prepare it.
Second reading: In this step the principles and facts affecting the bill are discussed and then it
is provided to the MPs to examine it in detail.
Third reading: In this step the bill is discussed, debated and there is vote which takes place and
then if there is majority of vote the bill is sent by both the houses for the royal assent. Once the
royal assent is obtained the bill is turned into an parliament act.
Delegated Legislation with meaning and example :
The meaning of Delegated Legislations is a law which is created by the ministers or other
bodies under the powers given to them by the Act of Parliament. It is utilised for a deep variety
of aim such as fixation of the date for making act of parliament into force as well as create
amendments or changes into the parent law. In delegated legislation the law is not passed by the
Parliament instead it gives the authority to make changes or pass certain laws to a delegated
person or ministers or other body. (Ziemba, E.W. And et. al., 2019)Delegated Legislation is also
known as the secondary legislation. The main source of it is the primary legislation. The
examples of the above law are regulations, order of council and ordinance.
Part 3: Law making process of UK
Contract Law:
a) The difference between Invitation to Treat and Offer :
Offer: Under English Contract Law it is defined that an offer or proposal is when a
person expresses the willingness to do or to abstain from doing anything, in order to obtain
assent of the other person to do or to abstain from doing anything.

Invitation to treat: Under English Contract Law an invitation to treat describes an
intention of a person in order to negotiate without getting bound legally. In other words, it refers
to an invitation for the other individual to form an offer.
The difference between the two is that in offer a person can directly enter into a contract
by giving assent to the person but invitation to treat mainly invites the other party to make an
offer.
b) Consideration and the respective rules: Under English Contract Law, a consideration is
something of value given for a promise to each other which is required in order to bring
enforceability to the promise made by both the parties. The rules for the consideration is that the
consideration should be sufficient rather than being adequate, it should not be illusory. The
consideration must not be past.
c) Postal Rule in Contract Law: In contract law its postal rule states that any kind of acceptance
is communicated with the help of telegram or post, it implies that the acceptance is
communicated formerly the post or telegram is posted. In the leading case law, Adam V.
Lindsell, it stated that the telegram and letter must be addressed in correct manner. stamped and
posted for the application of the above rule.
d) The impact of Contract Law on Businesses: The contract law guarantees the proper
functioning of the business operations by giving clarity of a business requirement. It helps to
achieve a set of goals decided by the company while performing business affairs within the rules
and regulations set by the parties involved in business and acts as a proof incase the expectations
of a party is not fulfilled or if there is a breach of obligations decided by the parties to perform.
CONCLUSION
In the context to the above mentioned information this report helps us with a lot of
information such as the definition of law and its division which are Civil law and Criminal law,
and the English judiciary system. In this report, the case laws as the sources of law, the delegated
legislation and the process of making legislation is also discussed under the sources of law.
Furthermore, the report is concluded by the UK law making process which includes the Contract
law's impact on the commercial organisations in the United Kingdom, which elaborates the
contract law and helps with the explanation of few terms such as difference between invitation to
offer and offer, thought process and its rules, postal rules and the effect of contract law on
enterprises.

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Hayes, S.L. and Wilson, C., 2018. Engaging with UK Parliament: a guide for UK Universities.
Johnson, D., 2020. What role does competition law have to play in the prosecution of financial
crime in the UK?. In Corruption, Integrity and the Law (pp. 36-53). Routledge.
Oxford Analytica, 2019. Brexit will pose dilemmas for UK constitution. Emerald Expert
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Summerfield, G., 2020. Italian Mafias Today: Territory, Business and Politics, edited by Felia
Allum, Isabella Clough Marinaro, and Rocco Sciarrone, Cheltenham UK, Edward Elgar
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Zhongming, Z. and et. al., 2021. New laws to ensure the UK has the skills it needs.
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