Business Law Report: UK Legal System, Government Role & JPM Advice

This report provides an overview of the UK legal system, focusing on the sovereignty of Parliament and the various sources of UK law, including civil law, common law, and EU law. It explains the government's crucial role in the law-making process, differentiating between statutory and common law and their application in justice courts. Furthermore, the report offers advice to JPM, a hypothetical company, regarding their responsibilities as directors concerning health and safety regulations, equal opportunities regulations, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), highlighting potential implications and impacts with relevant scenario examples. The document emphasizes the importance of adhering to these regulations for ethical business operations and employee well-being.

Business law
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Table of Contents
Section 1..........................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................7
Reference list.................................................................................................................................10
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Section 1
Task 1
‘Parliament is sovereign’.
a) Discuss the meaning of this statement and the various sources of UK Laws
Law is a system of rules that the state enforces on individual or organizations to regulate ethical
behavior. The collective of single legislature generally makes the state enforced laws. UK legal
system parliament is supreme in the law making and creates law and the executives and the
judicial system of the country do execution.
The UK law has 3 different legal system which applies on different geographical areas. English
law is applied in the region of England and Wales, north Ireland law and Scots law applies in the
north Ireland and Scotland respectively. The supreme court of United Kingdom is the highest
court for all the civil and criminal cases and the judicial committee of Privy Council is the
highest of the court appeal that can be done in United Kingdom (Bell, 2018)
One of the chief principal of UK constitution is parliament sovereignty. Parliament sovereignty
is described as the extent to which the parliament has power on the UK law making. It is said
that the parliament holds the absolute power in the UK constitution. However, the UK
constitution is unwritten but majority of the constitutional law has written document. The
statement “parliament is sovereign” explains UK parliament can make new law as required and
end a law, which is irrelevant for modern times. Parliament plays the supreme legal system in the
UK. Court is not allowed to overrule any legislation and even parliament is not allowed to make
legislation that future parliament cannot rectify. The statement implies that legislative body of
UK government has complete sovereignty and supremacy in the government institution. The
judicial and executive body is also falls under the legislative body. Parliament sovereignty and
national sovereignty are interchangeable terms (Davies, 2015).
Sources of law
The chief sources of the UK law are:
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Civil law: civil uses the legislation as the primary sources of the law. It is generally inquisitional
and does not follow the precedents. It is also limited in the interpretation. Being a inquisitional
system, civil law is handled by one or more judges and no juries. The defendants of a criminal
trial are considered guilty until proven. Examples of civil law are family, contract, tort and
property laws (Edge, 2017 ).
Common law: common law is used in many English-speaking states. The judges for solving
cases generally make the law, which does not have proper law by the state. To resolve certain
disputes judges of the lower court is given power to create law (Rendon, 2016). common law
originated during English king Henry second. It also follows an adversarial system where two
parties are allowed to investigate their respective case and present it in the court. There is also
involvement of jury who are the decision maker but acts as an umpire in the case. The diverse
case falls under the common law (Le Sueur, 2016)
Laws of EU: the European Union law is made for the member states of the union. The
foundations of the EU laws are – the treaty of European Union and treaty on the functioning of
the European Union. The national governments are the main operators of the council of the
European Union and the European council. Examples of EU laws are trade laws of eu, which
affects all the member states immensely, and Britain’s decision to leave EU might be a
controversial decision.
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b) Explain the role of government in the law making process and how statutory and
common law are applied in the justice courts
The government plays a huge role in law making of UK. Government also plays a huge role in
the making of statutory and the common law and implementation. When an issue or agenda
arises, that government needs to resolve they require making law. The process of law making
begins by identifying a issue then the proposal of law is made which will turn into a bill later.
The cabinet ministers play a huge role. The assent of the monarchy is important, UK being run
by monarchy for centuries. After the assent is given, the bill will be passed as a law in the state.
The government’s job is not done yet after the law is made, the enforcement of the law is also the
responsibility of the government. The government executives plays huge role in this. There is
also police army and military that enforces the law in the state and in case of sensitive situation,
they make sure, the peace of the state is maintained.
Statutes: the statutory law is formed by the parliament. The proposal is given commonly by the
ruling party of the in the parliament. The proposal then is reviewed and after that, the legislation
goes through several readings in the house of Common and house of Lord before it passes as a
law. One of the examples of a statute law in the UK is “employment rights act 1996”.
Common law: the common law is the laws made by the judges; in other words also known as
judicial precedent. The law is derived from courts and other similar tribunals in UK. Common
law is often used to resolve disputes in the cases that do not have any particular law Made by the
state. In some cases, the judge can take decision from precedential case if the case is similar in
manner. Otherwise, in certain cases the judge advises it and common laws are made. For
example, the laws regarding murder, manslaughter, assaults are laws, which can be decided by
the judges of the court.
Role of the government in statutory law: the government plays a major role in making
legislation. The legislative laws are generally made to resolve an issue that is detected by the
government and statutes are useful for creating ethical guidelines in the organizations. The
employment act of 1996 is an example of such. This law gives guideline to the private and public
organizations regarding the employee management. It also benefits the employees and gives
them a safe environment to work on.
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Role of government in common law: the common laws are made for the diverse cases a that
needs to be resolved. It is an old tradition in UK and still being followed through. The prudential
cases can be used for better judgment. There are family disputes or a case of witchcraft, which
are unusual and happens occasionally in a territorial region. These cases are handled by the
common law in the state so the parliament can be utilized for other important matters.
The implementation of the law is very important. There is no use of making a law if the
implementation is not done properly. Therefore, the government is carries out all the
implementation of the law. The statutory and the common law both have their respective
importance in their respective territory. The common law mostly concerns the individuals and
the statutory law is concerned with relationship between the government and the individual or
institution.
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Task 2
In an informal report provide appropriate advise to JPM using scenario examples where
relevant on their responsibilities as directors of the company with regards to potential
implications and impact of the following;
Executive Summary
As the directors of a respectable company, there is an essential need to operate in an effective
manner, while providing employees with the most effective conditions to work in. This report
provides an insight into the roles and responsibilities of such directors.
Introduction
The regulations as stated below are essential in building up the ethical responsibilities of the
company and its directors to their employees.
1. Health and Safety regulations
The health and safety of the workers are important and needs to be considered by the JPM.
Benefits of having a Health and safety regulations well maintained in a new company is
endless and will help the company to have less number of days wasted as sick days by the
employees. This will definitely increase the productivity of the company. This will definitely
boost the motivation of the workers. The British health and safety at work act 1974 describes
the basic behavior of the employer and employee towards each other and towards the members
of the public. JPM should follow this guideline strictly for their company it will be easier to
manage the employees with the correct guidelines (Gostin, 2016). The management of health
and safety at work regulations 1999 is another crucial law, which JPM need to follow through.
This law makes the employee aware the health and safety regulation that they need to follow at
work. There should be proper risk assessment that JPM needs to do in order to identify the
risks regarding the health of the employee. Risk assessment will identify the hazards that the
employees might face in the future. The result will help JPM to implement precaution in the
company to prevent anything from happening which a great benefit of following health and
safety regulations in an organization. There are certain common health hazards that every
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company should have a proper guideline for maintaining (Hillary, 2017). Proper management
of the health and safety in the work environment will help JPM to increase its reputation. The
employees will find the work environment safe to work in and this will definitely increase the
productivity of the worker.
2. Equal Opportunities regulations
The equal opportunity acts protects the workers from discrimination. The equality act 2010
creates guideline for organization to follow. This is a affective law specially if the work place
is diverse. JPM should follow the guideline to give their worker a discrimination free work
environment. There are several different discrimination like direct discrimination, indirect
discrimination, harassment and discrimination by association. The affect of the equality in the
workplace can influence the relationship between the employee and the employer. JPM should
ensure the equal opportunities regulations are well maintained. This will help the company to
manage a diverse employee and take benefit from it. A properly implemented diversity
program will benefit JPM in creating a ethical and dignified work environment. A diverse
workforce also benefits the company in many ways (Degener, 2016). The employees of the
JPM should also be aware of these guidelines so if they face certain problems they feel free to
consult with company official. The employers are free to complaint if the company to solve the
discrimination they are facing in the work place does not consult them. There are also
harassments that falls under the discrimination act. The company employee if being harassed,
sexually or otherwise can complaint under sex discrimination act 1975, race discrimination act
1976, and disability discrimination act 1995 (McGinley, 2016).
3. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
UK currently follows general data protection regulation replacing the old 1995 data protection
directives. The data privacy law needs to be followed by all the companies in UK. JPM also
needs to follow this regulation. The data protection has become a huge issue in current times.
The better data policy of accompany will easily be favored by the clients and consumers. This
regulation covers both personal and sensitive personal data. JPM should implement better data
management policy for better outcome from these regulations. Personal data contains name,
address, IP address and for sensitive personal data, the regulation mentioned generic data,
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political, religious and sexual orientation. For the new business like JPM there initially the
guideline might be little too much to manage but in the end it will benefit the company.
Publishing industry generally has a lot at stake due to copyright issues therefore; the company
should pay extra attention to their data policy. In recent times, there was a lot of well-known
company who has been accused of massive data breach that cause the companies to lose a lot
of market share. The data breach also causes trust issues with company, which for startup
company is not good (Kleist, 2018). The consumer’s compliance is very important when
collecting a sensitive data. There is Subject Access Regulations which allows an individual to
ask the company for data which another important aspect of the data protection regulation.
There is also a fine which companies are asked to give if they do not comply with the data
protection policies.
These regulations have high implication on the business of JPM, they should follow the
regulation to keep the company reputation intact, and these regulations will help the company
grow fast (Goodman and Flaxman. 2016).
Conclusion
The business of JPM will be affected in a positive manner, when the company’s directors are
able to follow through with their roles and responsibilities in an effective manner and execute
their duties of charge.
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Reference list
Davies, B., 2015. Popular Participation and Legitimacy in Constitutional Change: Finding the
Sovereign. Liverpool Law Review, 36(3), pp.277-297.
Bell, J., 2018. Sources of law. The Cambridge Law Journal, 77(1), pp.40-71.
Le Sueur, A., Sunkin, M. and Murkens, J.E., 2016. Public Law: Text, Cases, and Materials.
Oxford University Press.
Edge, P.W., 2017. Religion and law: An introduction. Routledge.
Rendon, M., 2016. Use of UK/US common law contract law in international business contracts
in Southeast Asia Empirical Evidence from Telecoms & Engineering. AJMI-ASEAN Journal of
Management & Innovation, 3(1), pp.65-81.
Gostin, L.O. and Wiley, L.F., 2016. Public health law: power, duty, restraint. Univ of California
Press.
Hillary, R. ed., 2017. Small and medium-sized enterprises and the environment: business
imperatives. Routledge.
Degener, T., 2016. Intersections between disability, race and gender in discrimination law.
In European Union non-discrimination law and intersectionality (pp. 39-56). Routledge.
McGinley, A.C., 2016. Disability Discrimination Law in Employment. Nev. Law., 24, p.8.
Kleist, V.F., 2018. An Interview with Richard Smith Vice President and Chief Information
Officer, Wabtec Corporation. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 21(2),
pp.161-163.
Goodman, B. and Flaxman, S., 2016. European Union regulations on algorithmic decision-
making and a" right to explanation". arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.08813.
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