Understanding the English Legal System: A Guide for Country Pine

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Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
Task 2 Illustrate the potential impact of the law on a business....................................................4
Task 3 Suggest appropriate legal solutions to business problems................................................6
Task 4 Recommend appropriate legal solutions based upon alternative legal advice provided..9
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................11

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Task 1
The English Legal System which BF is interested in understanding is explained as under.
English Legal system
The English legal system consists of number of courts which are established in it as per their
respective hierarchy. (Slapper and Kelly 2013)
i. The highest court in the English legal system that exists is the Supreme Court. It is the
last court to which the appeal can be made and the decision of the Supreme Court is final
with respect to all the courts in English legal system.
ii. The next in the level of hierarchy comes the Senior courts in Wales and England and
comprise of the following courts that are:
a) Court of appeal is one of the parts of the above said courts as the appeals of
tribunal are heard by this court. They are further divided into two parts, one is
civil division which hears the appeals from country courts, superior tribunal and
high courts. And other part comprises of criminal division which hears appeals
from matters of indictment and country courts. Their decision is binding but to all
courts below supreme courts.
b) The high court is the court which takes civil matters at first instance and also is
the criminal and civil appellant court.
c) The courts which deals with the civil matters at first instance are known as Crown
courts. They also hear the appeals from following, that is, family courts, youth
courts, Subordinate courts that comprise of county courts and magistrate courts.
These are the courts which are found at the lowest level of the legal system of the
United Kingdom.
Sources of Law
The court system of United Kingdom is quite predominant and the laws which are being
followed by the legal system in the country of United Kingdom come from various sources
which are stared as follows. (BPP Learning Media 2009)

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i. The law that is based upon the precedents and the case laws as per decision of the superior
courts is the source of law for the courts. The courts when find same problem with the
same issue applies the decision by following the precedents that had been formulated upon
the same subject. This is known as common law.
ii. The legislature is the main source of law which enact laws and thus the laws are formulated
with the bills. The legislations can be public and private as the legislations which are
designed for public comes under the head public laws and the legislations which are
formulated for the private persons comes under the head private laws.
iii. The laws of European Union are also applied in the states of United Kingdom apart from
the state own laws but in case when both the laws are applicable then the laws of European
Union will be taken into account as they are considered above the state domestic laws.
After going through the hierarchy of courts and source of law the formulation of act in United
Kingdom is now discussed as under.
Enactment of an Act by the Parliament (Parliament 2018)
The government in power is embedded with the duty to enact the laws for the United Kingdom.
The steps taken to enact a law are as under:
i. The first step is drafting of a bill by the government
ii. The drafted bill is presented in the house which can be the House of Lords or the
House of Commons.
iii. The bill then goes through the procedure as stated below:
i. For the purpose of the first reading of bill it can be presented in any of the
house.
ii. A debate over the bill is made in its second reading.
iii. Change in bills as amendments etc and recommendations are then
approved by voting over the same.

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iv. The third stage is a stage when the implementation of the amendments
takes place.
v. Then after then when the bill is passed from both the houses then the
Royal assent is taken over same.
vi. And at last when the assent is received the bill is converted into an Act
and the Act is then applied to the persons of the United Kingdom and the
same are thus followed by the persons.
Task 2 Illustrate the potential impact of the law on a business
As in the provided assignment the Country Pine (CP) wants to know about the business
Agreement and the consumer laws.
Business Agreements and their understanding
An agreement is formed amongst the parties when there is an offer by one party known as an
offeror and the offer is made by an offeror to a person known as an offeree with an intention of
the same being accepted by the offeree and in case the offeree accepts the offer of the offeror
then a concluded agreement is made between an offeror and an offeree. But instead of an offer
and its acceptance there must be other elements that also must be there in order to make an
agreement a contract. (Cartwright 2014)
As an agreement is a wider term then a contract and all the agreements are not contracts but all
contracts are hence agreements.
The elements to make a contract are as follows:
1. An offer is the initial step towards the contract formation as an offer is an intention of the
offeror which is communicated to an offeree Harvey v Facey [1893].
2. An acceptance is the next step after an offer it is said to occur when the offer of the
offeror is assented to by an offeree Brogden v. Metropolitan Railway Co. (1877).