Comprehensive Report on the UK Legal System, Sources, and Torts

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the UK legal system, beginning with a classification of laws into private and public law. It then explores the principal sources of law, including legislation, case law, equity, parliamentary conventions, general customs, and books of authority, detailing their characteristics and providing relevant examples. The report further delves into the law of tort, defining it as a body of laws governing obligations for damages or injuries resulting from carelessness, differentiating between intentional, negligent, and strict liability torts, and illustrating with examples. It highlights the characteristics of tort law, emphasizing its civil nature and the concept of rights in rem, concluding with the importance of legal rights violation in tort cases. The report is well-structured, referencing key legal concepts, and providing examples to illustrate each point, making it a valuable resource for students studying the UK legal system.

The UK Legal system, sources
of laws and aspects of
contract law, Law of Tort,and
Employment Law

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
1.0 The UK Classifications of Laws................................................................................................2
3.0 The Law Of Tort.......................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
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MAIN BODY
1.0 The UK Classifications of Laws
Law is defined as system of rules which is developed by the government or society for
dealing with crimes, arguments in business, social relationships (Haworth and et.al., 2019). It
can also be referred to as the people working in such system.
The UK law has been classified into two types, namely, Private Law & Public Law.
Private Law - The law that governs relations between private organization & individual is
classifies as private law.
Characteristics:
The basis for private law is the autonomy of freedom. It means it is legal to perform any
activity that is not prohibited by the law.
It is based on the notion that all parties are equal and enjoys equal rights. Same rule are
applicable to everyone.
In the case of state’s participation as private person in private law all the sovereignty it is
entitled to will be deprived (Murphy and et.al., 2021).
Individuals who does not have any type of compulsion by state have different
answerability that arises for the acts of responsible freedom.
It is a notional law.
Various conflicts are tried to be resolved through different ways being find out and thus it
is positive law.
Public Law - Law concerning the relationship that exists between state and individuals is
defined as the public law. This classification of law is concerned with relation of public
interest. The other name for this type of law is state law.
One of its characteristics is that it is confined with the interests of society or state
with one individual. Other characteristic is that country’s ruler is having a position higher
than such individuals (Sajó, 2019). Such a law is enforced for combine aims and interests of
community at wide. The relationships between individuals, countries, communities and
political bodies that are inclusive in it.
English and Welsh Law
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Scots Law
Northern Ireland Law
2.0 inging
In the English Legal System the principal sources of law are as follows:
Legislation (/primary & secondary) - Prime source of law is legislation. It comprises
by competent authority a legal rules’ declaration. There are various goals of this source like
regulation, authorization, sanction, declaration, restriction, providence of funds or proscribe.
New laws are framed, amendments to the old laws are done. Power of making of law may be
delegated to bodies that lower levels by the legislature.
Case Law - It is based on ‘doctrine of stare decisive. The association is majorly
English common law based jurisdictions and the concept is obtained from system of civil
law. It is the accumulation of law principles that comes from the decisions taken over a
period of centuries. In this judgement of important cases by the judges are recorded for
serving as an important source of law.
Equity - this law source is applicable particularly in England & Wales. It is Court of
Chancery developed case law. This source of law predominates common law. Although the
applicability is at discretion.
Parliamentary conventions - these are rules of law which are not strict and it may
happen that breach of these conventions leads to law breach. Relationships are governed by
parliamentary conventions.
General Customs - This particular source of law is considered to be a source because
of its being in use from a long time, this not written formally.
Books of Authority - In this source of law the legal authors are cited whether alive or
not.
ing
Legislation - It has the characteristic of regulating and control the behaviour of humans.
It prohibits individuals from behaving in a manner that is restricted by the society.
Legislation has the feature of treating over individual equal irrespective of the status or
power, etc. Everyone is treated equally under law. It maintains the peace & order in society.
Example is constitution.
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Case law is the decision by the court that is treated as authority for judgement in the
subsequent cases that have similar situations. Example - Donoghue v Stevenson (1932).
Equity - The features of equity are it is law that is related with expressing, outcomes and
building of trusts. It includes fiduciary law and equitable estoppel. It comprises relief against
forfeiture & penalties. Individual seeking equity must practice it. Example is Lodge v.
National Union Investment Company Limited. An individual seeking equity must not have
past record of practicing something against it. Example D & C Builders Ltd v. Rees.
Parliamentary Conventions - These are not enforceable by law. These are the practices
that is followed by the courts from a long time (Murphy and et.al., 2021). The example of
parliamentary convention is case of Miller (No 1) in which the supreme court said that these
are not legally enforceable and hence Professor Colin Munro is not subjected to proceedings
by court.
General Customs - It is a course of conduct that is practiced continually and expresses the
societal approval on the actions by persons. It is a practice that is long established. For
Example: Darshansing v. NaimumNisaBibi.
Books of Authority - These are authoritative statements of law. Example - Anthony
Fitzherbert’s La Graunde Abridgement (1514).
As per the Unfair Dismissal Act 1977 (Cth) it must be ensured that dismissal of
employees should not be unfair in a multilingual organization. The employees of a
multilingual organization must not be discriminated on the basis of their colour, race, sex,
age, marital status, etc. according to the Equal opportunity act 1984 (Cth).
3.0 The Law Of Tort
It is a body of laws governing the obligation of a person to other on account of the
damages or injuries that are a result of such person’s carelessness. Tort law is also commonly
called as civil law. Civil cases are different from criminal cases, where government prosecution
is involved and punishment is given against commitment of alleged act that is not lawful.
Resolving of civil cases often happen by the virtue of negotiation among the parties involved.
This is done by assistance of representing lawyers of concerned parties.
In the situation where negotiation is not successful. Trial by judge or a jury is taken place.
The clear distinction between civil & criminal cases is absent as all the wrongs are treated as
breach of rights that are entitled to one by common law (Jacob and Strath, 2019). The rights
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over property or claims with respect of personal injuries inclusive of physical harm are included
in this. For the purpose of winning a trot case a person have to prove that due to the fault of other
party damages have been suffered. The amount for damages are provided in tort case as per the
law.
There are three types of tort law: intentional tort, negligent tort & strict liability tort. Most
common example of tort is theft, which is an intentional tort. Defective goods production helds
the company liable for all the damages such goods will cause as per the category of strict liability
tort. An individuals culpable mind sate is in strict liability tort. For instance in a case in Feb, year
2016, a auto driving car by Google bumped into a bus in the region of Mount View of California.
This accident happened because of some manufacturing defects in the car. And hence according
to the law of torts manufacturer is liable of such defective part and has to pay for the
compensation that driver asks.
The characteristics of Tort is it is a civil wrong. There are two categories to wrong of
which one must be aware one is civil wrong other is criminal wrong. As tort is civil law it is for
civil wrong (Chandrawat, 2019). The distinguish is important as civil laws does not have
punishments like criminal laws. A tort is violation of a right in rem. There are two kinds of
rights, namely, right in person and right in rem. Right in persona is that right which is present
against a specific individual while right in rem is against the entire world.
Furthermore the next characteristics is that it deals cases that are related to legal rights.
The law only deals with the violation of legal rights. For instance in the Gloucester Grammar
School case, defendant started running a school in front of a well established school. As a result
of this the revenues of existing school fell down. The loss was economic and there was no legal
right violation and hence there was no liability of the accused. In this law of tort any damages
that are not a result of breach of legal rights are not covered.s
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Haworth, S. and et.al., 2019. Apparent latent structure within the UK Biobank sample has
implications for epidemiological analysis. Nature communications. 10(1). pp.1-9.
Murphy, J. and et.al., 2021. Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine
hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Nature
communications. 12(1). pp.1-15.
Sajó, A., 2019. The constitution of illiberal democracy as a theory about society. Polish
Sociological Review. (208). pp.395-412.
Durant, A., 2022. Peter Goodrich, Advanced Introduction to Law and Literature (Edward Elgar,
Cheltenham, UK and Northampton MA, USA), 2021. pp. 119.
Chandrawat, S. S., 2019. Origin and Development of Law of Tort in India. Journal of Law of
Torts and Consumer Protection Law. 2(1). pp.12-16.
Jacob, R. and Strath, J., 2019. UK Court of Appeal confirms strike-out of claim for loss under
‘unlawful means’ tort. Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice. 14(12). pp.922-
924.
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