Introduction to the English Legal System: Key Concepts and Structure

hello everybody and welcome to the first lesson on the subject of the English legal system what we're going to do in

this lesson is essentially Define some of our terms so we're going to introduce the subject of the English

legal system for example Define what the English legal system is why it's important that we are very precise with

our terms in terms of English legal system and we're not referring to other um other phrases to Define things like

the United Kingdom for example and then we're going to define the scope of this series of lessons

this is a series of lessons which is vital to anybody who is studying law at university in England and Wales the

reason for this is because what this course is going to allow you to do is have a very introductory basic

understanding of the way in which the English legal system works and operates the role of each of the individual

component parts within this system so what does the role of the Judiciary entail what does the role of parliament

entail all of these things are going to be vital for your study of other areas of

law so if you're going to then go and study contracts if you're going to then study uh the the criminal law you're

going to have a better understanding of how all of these things fit together after you've gone through and looked at

these lessons on the English legal system I would also like to note as well that

pretty much every single University course or in institution in England and Wales will have a module that it would

be compulsory in their first year on the English legal system anyway so this is going to form part of that study

when we talk about the English legal system what we're doing is referring to a very specific and detailed and precise

thing we're talking about the legal system which structures law in England and Wales this is just another way in

which we can reword and and conceptualize what we mean when we talk about the English legal system

but the first question you might be asking is well some people might be living you might say that you live in

England but the the country that we we are from the country that is for uh in which you are studying is the United

Kingdom surely so isn't it better to call it the United Kingdom legal system or the UK's legal system well because

we're talking about the ways in which law is administered and made in this country we have to be very reticent to

the fact and very aware of the fact that depending on which of the countries within the United Kingdom you are in

will depend on the legal system in question so uh the clue is in the name we are a United Kingdom of uh the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that is the official title of this country but that means that there

are various different um there are various different uh sort of countries that were that exist within

this United Kingdom and so while we're in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this is the

official title of the country tree the law exists in different ways in different parts of the country so for

example in Scotland they have a very different law to England and Wales that is why when we talk about the study of

the English legal system we are referring to a very specific thing and we are not referring to things such as

for example Scots law foreign about the emphasis of England and Wales

we know that the United Kingdom is is made up of of Great Britain which is made up of England Wales and Scotland

and then you also have it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain which are those three countries and Northern Ireland as

well well if that's the case then surely England Wales and Scotland all have different legal systems well the reason

why we say England and Wales is because ever since around the 1200s England and Wales have had merged and

co-developing legal systems such that the common law the English common law has developed within both jurisdictions

and so the legal annexation of Wales was achieved by parliament in the Wales Act of 1535. so for the longest of times

England and Wales have had these have had similarities in terms of their of their legal systems the common law has

developed in both of these legal systems um in conjunction with each other and so when we talk about the legal

system um that we are referring to in this series and what we'll be referring to

when we do for example criminal law and when we do for example the law of tort we're talking about the legal system of

England and Wales in recent years there have been movements when it comes to the issue of

devolution which we're going to get to when we look at a series of lessons on that on constitutional and

administrative law but essentially um legislation that was introduced by a

new Labor uh with things like for example the government of Wales act has led to a situation where um further laws

have been made that can be distinct from England and Wales that have been made in Wales with the government of Wales Act

we'll get to the importance and our understanding of what Devolution does and the impact of devolution in future

lessons time but it should just be noted that the law of England and Wales is considered to be separate too for

example the law of Scotland and Scotch law and this brings us to Scotland because essentially why is it the case

that even though we are a part of the Great of Great Britain we're part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland why is it the case that Scotland is therefore separate in our studies of legal systems well

when Scotland became part of the United Kingdom when it became part of Great Britain it did so under the act of Union

following the act of Union before this and before the joining of the monarchist which takes place after the death of

Queen Elizabeth the First in 1603 we have James IV of Scotland become James the first of England and he becomes a

joint uh ruler of both Scotland and England with uh depending on whereabouts you're from him being referred to as

James IV if you're from Scotland or James the first if you are from England

Scotland and England before all of this take place however were distinctly separate entities and in fact they were

often embroiled in numerous conflicts with each other if you look and study any of the um the the nearly thousand or

so years before um the development and the acts of Union uh between the two between the two

countries you will note that there are lots of skirmishes lots of battles lots of conflicts that take place

and given that for a significant period of History should I say England and Scotland have been

separate their legal systems have stayed separate but this does not answer the question as to why the legal systems are

separate to this day because you could suggest that well with the acts of Union surely that means that the legal systems

are going to be made um merged together and they're going to then develop in conjunction with each

other well when it comes to the active Union one of the things that was very much

cited and codified within the active Union is this idea of the preservation of Scott's law the act of Union of 1707

within title 19 of this active Union specifically it noted that while Scotland was to join with England in the

united in the United Kingdom in in the establishment of Great Britain Scots law the Scottish legal system would be

preserved within Scotland now what this essentially means for students of of English law and students

of of law from any jurisdiction in this particular region um is that it does make for some kinds

of complexities because while it is the true that's that parliament in creating legislation creates legislation which

binds Scotland um in terms of the development of case law and the common law in England that

is separate to that of Scots law in Scotland so we will talk about the the powers of Parliament and the ways in

which legislation is created in future lessons time but it should just be noted that when we talk about for example the

criminal law we are either going to be referring to Scots law or the law of England and Wales on this channel we're

going to be referring to the law of England and Wales if in the future we might do a series of lessons on Scots

criminal law um but the for now we're going to focus on England and Wales

and this brings us to the scope of this series essentially what this course will do is provide you with a detailed

examination of the English legal system this is going to be knowledge and skill that is going to be vital for your

understanding of how law operates within this jurisdiction so it's not going to be law that is specific to a particular

topic so we're not necessarily going to be focusing all our time on family law or or medical law or or criminal law

we're going to be focusing on just the way in which law is administered and made generally holistically and we might

use case studies from all the different various areas of law as we go as and when we go

so essentially the first major Topic in this series is going to look at the sources of law within England and Wales

this involves an introduction and an examination of how law is made so and where it is made from so including the

ways in which law making is made law of making is done should I say through the Parliamentary model through Parliament

I.E how laws are passed in Parliament the interpretation of statutory legislation statutory legislation and

statutes refers to parliamentary legislation as well as the structure of courts in the creation of the common law

and the principle of precedent we're going to talk about the various different ways in which we interpret

case law decisions including things like principles such as the idea of Starry decisis ratio dissidenti et cetera etc

etc we will also talk about other sources of law which are external to not only

England and Wales but also the United Kingdom so we'll talk about the ways in which international law operates and

binds on to the English legal system through the signing of treaties for example and the interpretation of

international custom as well as the impact and influence of the European Union an institution for which we were a

member for a great many years we will then in our second topic talk about the idea of Courts and tribunals

we'll talk about the structure of the Judiciary we'll talk about the types of courts that exists the distinction

between the Civil jurisdiction and the criminal jurisdiction within the court structure administration of law in both

courts and tribunals as well as the various principles that underpin the appointment of the Judiciary and members

of the Judiciary so things like for example Independence of the Judiciary and security of tenure for example

in the final major topic we're going to talk about the role of professionals within the legal system that we live in

as well as the access to justice issues that exist so this means a distinction between the Barrister and the solicitor

within a legal case the concept of legal ethics will do a very basic overview of that the concept of legal aid and

funding and access to Justice in both the civil and criminal jurisdictions now when it comes to looking at various

textbooks in relation to the English legal system many textbooks then would go on to talk about the criminal justice

system and the Civil Justice System in a lot more detail the reason why we're not going to do that is because we're going

to save those two topics for their own separate series of lessons so we're going to do a whole series of lessons

that will be as large as this series of lessons on the criminal justice system and then on the Civil Justice System as

well that will all form part of both an introductory topic which is this topic and then some more advanced

topics on the ways in which the structure of the English legal system operates