ENGLISH LAW

English Law

English Law

Q.1 i) outline the sources of the English Law in the order of their importance.

Ans.

Legislation (Statue Law), Common Law (Judge-made Law) and the European Communities law are said to be the three main sources of English law in UK. English Law was historically based on traditions and social customs. (Longshaw & Hughes 2002, 3-17) Nowadays, Custom Law is a division of Common Law, particularly being in cases where there was no judicial precedent but which were known to exist since time memorial (i.e. since 1189). Many of these laws such as the Fisherman's Case (1894) in criminal law and Beckett Ltd v. Lyons [1967] 1 All ER 833 the law of user in Land Law are still good law. Custom law can still be used to argue a case provided the conditions set out by law are met. It is important to remember though that 'law never goes out of date, and it does not become obsolete because of passage of time'.

Common law also is frequently used to contrast legal systems (Berman 1983, 9-15) with British heritage to those derived from French and Roman law, which are termed civil law or civilian systems. Perhaps the most important meaning of the term common law is to describe the process of generating rules through judicial consideration of private disputes. The common law process has several important characteristics. First, the common law relied on private parties to bring a dispute to a court. Relying on private actors substantially limits rent seeking by restricting the courts' ability to choose the issues they address. Second, the common law evolved rules incrementally. (Morriss 1999, 355-391) Change was thus largely on the margins and based on the specific facts of a dispute. Third, the substance of the common law to a substantial degree rested on the intent of the parties. To an extent surprising to a modern reader, the early common law was the law of contract. When the common law specified a rule, it most often did so in the form of a default rule, leaving the parties free to alter the rule in future transactions if they so chose. Finally, the common law developed out of a competitive market for dispute resolution in England where, during much of the early development of the English legal system, different court systems competed for litigants' business.

Statute law, by contrast, is the product of some legislative ...