Law & Legal Systems in the United Kingdom

This essay provides an overview of the legal system in the United Kingdom, covering types of laws, principles of criminal law, court structure, and the effectiveness of the criminal justice process. It discusses the roles of various public services and organizations involved in the criminal justice process and explores different ways to measure its effectiveness. The essay concludes by highlighting the importance of performance data in improving the criminal justice system.

Unit 7: Law & Legal
Systems

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy and the head of the state is the
monarch. The duties, powers and the functions of monarch are prescribed by the Convention.
Parliament is the superior authority for law making in UK who pass the legislation which
consists of a monarch and two houses, mainly House of Lords and House of Commons. Laws are
basically the set of rules which are created and also enforced by the particular community or
country through the governmental and social institutions in order to regulate the member's
action. The parliament enacts the law and the Supreme Court which is the highest court of the
land who interpret the laws of UK but it cannot struck down any of the statutes (Altawyan,
2017). Parliament have power to over ride the precedents of Supreme court by the virtue of
Parliamentary sovereignty. This essay shall cover the types of laws, main principles of criminal
law, structure of magistrate and crown court and the route of appeal in criminal court. Further it
will cover responsibilities and roles of public service in criminal justice process, various ways in
which effectiveness of CJP can be measured and how performance data can help in measuring
the effectiveness of the criminal justice process.
MAIN BODY
Law is defined as the system of regulations that the country values as governing actions
of the members of the country and enforces it by enforcement of the penalties. Law plays the
significant role in shaping the society. The types of law in English legal system is discussed
below-
Civil and criminal law- It is the most common classification which is used in legal
system. Criminal law3 is about creating the law for the purpose to protect the society as the
whole and provide the punishment to the wrongdoer. It sets out the type of the behaviour which
is forbidden by the society and if it occurs, the penalty is occurred. On other side, the civil law is
used to settle down the dispute between the people which also includes company and the
corporations. The party who is fault is ordered to pay the amount of compensation or comply
with other civil remedies like injunction (Martin, 2018).
Public and the private law- The former includes the government or the state in few way.
There are many kinds of laws which fall under this concept which includes the constitutional law
because all these involves the state. On other hand, the later is concerned with effective running

of the society and covers includes areas like business, education, work and many other.
Illustration of private law involves employment law, tort or law of succession.
Statutory and common law- These are the most authentic law as the statutory law is
enacted by the supreme law making authority which is a Parliament and the common law is the
judge made law where the judges gives ruling through its precedents which have same relevancy
as that of the statutory law (Febbrajo, 2018).
The criminal law of UK is concerned with crimes, its prevention and consequences. The
conduct which is criminal in nature is a wrong which is committed against the wrong society
rather than against one person. The state have the responsibility to forbid the crimes by bringing
the culprits to the justice. The principles of criminal law is illustrated below-
There are mainly two elements of the crime which involves the act of doing something
and the intention behind the act. In Latin terms, these are called actus reus and mens rea. The
former is for the criminal act which is a physical element in commission of the crime. It is an
application or the danger of the unlawful force or an omission or failure to act which may result
in the liability. Mens rea is the criminal mind of committing crime. It is the mental element and
they both together form the bed lock of the criminal law, although the strict liability offences
have encroached this notion (Mirmohammad Sadeghi, Rahmati and Niyazabadi, 2018).
There are four main principles of criminal law of which first is innocent until guilty
proven which is also the presumption of innocence. According to this, the court must presume
that the person is innocent until he/ she is proven guilty and whenever, there is any reasonable
uncertainty, the individual should be acquitted. Second principle is onus of proof. The
prosecution has the task to prove the guiltiness of the person who is being charged with the crime
and for the suspect to be at fault of the offence, it shall be established without reasonable doubt.
The third principle is the right to remain silent. normally a person is not needed to
answer the questions of police but their is an exception to it. Like for instance, the police may
request the address and name of the person who is found committing any offence. And fourth is
double jeopardy rule which states that the individual must not be imprisoned for the same
offence more than once. But under Criminal Procedure Act of 1921, the rule of double jeopardy
does not apply to serious offence like rape, murder, etc.
The criminal case begins at the court of magistrate which is at the bottom end of the
scale. There are more than 300 Magistrate Court in UK and they deal with the minor offences.

They are aimed to provide speedy and efficient way to handle the minor offence. They mainly
deal with the trails of family proceedings, youth courts, summary offences and the committals to
the Crown Court. The lawsuits are heard by the panel of three magistrates without the jury and
the appeals against the decision of magistrate court goes to Crown court.
The Crown Courts deals with the indictable cases which have been transferred from the
Magistrate court which includes proceeding of the serious criminal suits, appeals and cases sent
for the imprisonment. The cases in Crown courts are heard by the judge and jury and the decision
of Crown Court may be appealed to Court Of Appeal Criminal Division (Wangmann, 2020).
The Appellant Court is that court where the appeal is made. The route of the appeal
depends upon the factors like the type of case, the court from where the appeal is brought and
who have made the decision and its type. Whenever any party is unhappy and unsatisfied from
the decision of any court, it can seek an appeal to higher court against the decision of the judge.
There should be proper grounds for appealing and also there is strict time limit within which the
appeal can be made.
The Magistrate Court is the court of first instance in criminal cases and there are many
ways in which the decision of Magistrate Court can be challenged. The appeal against the
decision of Magistrate Court in the criminal case is heard by the Crown Court. Then if the
decision is made by the Crown Court, it is essential to seek the leave or permission from the
judge before the appeal can be made against the conviction in the criminal case. The appeal from
Crown Court goes to Court of Appeals criminal division. And finally, the appeal against the
decision of court of appeal is made to the Supreme Court which is the highest court in United
Kingdom. Supreme Court is the final court of appeal for the criminal cases in United Kingdom
and beyond this, no appeal can be made in any court and the decision of Supreme Court shall be
binding on the parties (Butler, 2019).
Criminal justice process comprises of majorly three institutions which helps in
processing the suit from the inception, by the trial to the sentence. A lawsuit is started with the
officials of law enforcement who is entrusted with the role to investigate the crime and collect
the evidence in order to determine the presumed perpetrator.
There are many public services and other related organisations who are involved in
rendering the effective criminal justice process. These organisations are involved in rendering
justice to the victims by providing punishment to the wrongdoer. One such organisation is Her

Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service which is responsible for the examination of the Crown
Prosecution service together with severe fraud officers. It initiates the help in prosecution process
through assessing evidence on independent basis s that public confidence is built. Another public
service and related organisation includes Crown Prosecution service which provides justice to
the prisoners. It has partnership with courts, police, and other authorities. Third is police who is
responsible to investigating about the crime and collect relevant evidence. In serious offences,
the police forward the file to CPS in order to decide the prosecution and in minor offences, the
police decide the cautioning (Soprano, 2018).
Fourth is courts and tribunals which is responsible to administer criminal matter.
Magistrate courts deals with criminal matters which are not of serious nature and the crown court
deals with the serious offences like rape and murder. Fifth is home office which works at front
line and is responsible for keeping environment of country safe. The main role of home office is
to provide security to country. Sixth is the ministry of justice which is rendered with the
responsibility to protect the justice and advance its principles. Its responsibility is to deliver the
helpful system of justice to the whole society. Next is law officer of the attorneys who is
responsible to provide legal advice to the superintendents of Crown Prosecution service and the
government. Next is Her majesty's Prison & Probation Services which is entrusted with the role
to carry out sentences which are passed by courts and also to rehabilitate people in the case by
giving them proper employment opportunities and education so that they can lead normal life
(Bonanno and Corso, 2018).
There are different ways in which effectiveness of the criminal justice process can be
measured which can be measured by collecting relevant information and data from the general
public. The first way to measure the effectiveness involves the public confidence in effectiveness
and fairness of the criminal justice process. The people have confidence in the working of
judiciary and their dealing in the cases which shows the effectiveness of the justice system.
Second way is the experience of the justice system for the witnesses and victims. They are
satisfied with way the criminal justice process have contact with the case. According to victims
and witnesses, they had positive experience when taking justice from the judiciary and have
sound satisfaction with the criminal justice process. This shows the effectiveness and through
this way, the effectiveness can be measured easily. Another way to measure the effectiveness is
the enforcement of law (Ministry of Justice, Provisional Quarterly Criminal Justice System

Performance Information, 2004) The strictness in the enforcement of law will help in measuring
the effectiveness of the criminal justice process as it is said that the more is the strict
implementation of law, the less is the crime rate in the country (Entin and Entina, 2020).
The performance data may help in measuring the effectiveness of the criminal justice
process as it will show the actual facts and figure which will help in identifying the loopholes in
the process, if any. It brings the quantitative information about the desired outcome and goals
which will help to measure the actual performance. Data collection helps in understanding many
aspects which help to measure the effectiveness of the criminal justice process which includes
how victims are affected by the crime or is their response to the experience effective or adequate.
Through the data collection, quantified data can be gathered which will help in bringing out the
performance data with the help of which effectiveness can be measured. The data relating to
number of crimes, victims or who commits the crime, all these helps the state or judiciary to
come up with such measures which can help in improving the criminal justice process. For
instance, the performance data will help the legislature to enact such laws which can reduce the
number of crime and accused so that a safe environment is created which have less criminal
cases. The national crime statistics or the British Crime Surbey of the country helps in measuring
the effectiveness of the process which in turns opens the ways in which it can be improved.
Moreover, the performance data opens the minds and eyes of the people who are involved in
rendering an effective criminal justice system so that they can take such measures which can
help to make improvement in the effectiveness of the criminal justice process (Schuele, 2021).
Illustration 1: Ministry of Justice, 2014

The adults who thinks that the criminal justice system is fair are approximately 59% as
per the British crime survey and 41% of the adults believe that the criminal justice system is
effective as per 2009-10 survey. As per the statistics available for the year 2013-14, the level of
confidence in the criminal justice system has increased in terms of fairness and effectiveness.
Around 64% of the respondents believe that they have confidence in CJS as it is fair and 48%
believe that it is effective (Ministry of Justice, British Crime Survey, 2014).

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay that the legal system of UK consists of head of state
and the two houses which are House of Lords and House of Commons. There are different types
of laws in the English legal system which includes civil and criminal, public and private and the
statutory and common law. The principles relating to the criminal law includes mens rea, actus
reus, innocent until proven guilty and double jeopardy which helps in rendering fair and effective
justice. The criminal courts in English legal system consists of the Magistrate Court, Crown
Court, Court Of Appeal criminal division and the Supreme Court. Moreover, there are many
public services which have their roles and responsibility in effective criminal justice process
which are courts and tribunals, police, law officers and many other. There are different ways like
experience of witness and victim, public confidence and enforcement of law which helps in
measuring the effectiveness of the criminal justice process. And at last, it is concluded that the
performance data helps in gathering the quantified data which helps in measuring the
effectiveness of the criminal justice process.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Altawyan, A., 2017. The legal system of the Saudi judiciary and the possible effects on
reinforcement and enforcement of commercial arbitration. Canadian Int’l. J. Soc. Sci. &
Ed, 10, pp.269-288.
Bonanno, D. and Corso, L., 2018. What Does Nemesis Have to Do with the Legal System?
Discussing Aristotle’s Neglected Emotion and Its Relevance for Law and Politics.
In Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics (pp. 237-259). Springer, Cham.
Butler, W.E., 2019. What Makes Socialist Legal Systems Socialist. Law Ukr.: Legal J., p.131.
Entin, M. and Entina, Y., 2020. Back to the Legal Middle Ages?. Russian Politics & Law, 57(1-
2), pp.41-56.
Febbrajo, A. ed., 2018. Law, Legal Culture and Society: Mirrored Identities of the Legal Order.
Taylor & Francis.
Martin, I.P., 2018. Linguistic challenges of an English-dominant legal system in the
Philippines. Asian Englishes, 20(2), pp.134-146.
Mirmohammad Sadeghi, H., Rahmati, A. and Niyazabadi, M., 2018. The Role of Established
Concepts of Civil Law in Explanation of Property Offences in Iran and UK Legal
System. Journal of Comparative Law, 5(1), pp.25-46.
Schuele, D.C., 2021. Beyond the Borders of the Law: Critical Legal Histories of the North
American West. Western Historical Quarterly.
Soprano, R., 2018. WTO Trade Remedies in International Law: Their Role and Place in a
Fragmented International Legal System. Routledge.
Wangmann, J., 2020. Coercive control as the context for intimate partner violence: The
challenge for the legal system. In Criminalising coercive control (pp. 219-242).
Springer, Singapore.
Online
Ministry of Justice, Provisional Quarterly Criminal Justice System Performance Information,
2004 [Online] Available Through
<https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/217920/quarterly-cjs-performance-stats-q3-09-10c.pdf>
Ministry of Justice, British Crime Survey, 2014 [Online] Available Through
<https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/449444/public-confidence.pdf>