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

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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.