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Introduction to law and practise

Learning outcome:

Understand the structure of the law.

Learning Assessment:

1.1 Explain the classifications of the law.

Knowledge, understanding and skills:

1.1 Explanation of how the law impacts on our daily lives, the “pervasive” nature of the law. Definitions of and comparisons between Common Law, Equity and Legislation.

Source: Cilex

Note: Whilst I am using syllabus targeted to developing understanding from 16-18 Year olds and above, I am not limiting the pass to school standard. There is no point in my view teaching bite size bits to students to be built on by someone else, as is often the case with British schooling through to university. Hence, the aim is to reach mastery of the subject being learnt, which uses level three framework, but extends in material all the way to level six, thus making the learning process less complicated, as it is not the complexity of any subject, nor intelligence, that limit a student, but gaps produced when any student despite having the skill set, is burdened by level 6 material without the prior grounding.

Definitions:

Philosophy - “Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”[1][2][3][4]) is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[5][6]The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.[7][8] Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it?[9][10][11] What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)?[12] Do humans have free will?[13]” - wikipedia

It is my firm belief such thoughts, and frivolous wastage of time, are the devil’s doing, for verily mankind is in loss with the passing of time. Thus contemplating variables and unknowns are signs of a soul and mind at unrest, because the human condition longs for comfort and reasoning. If the true message and belief has never been heard or ignored then a man’s condition will be lost in imaginations and conundrums when the manual of success is ignored. THUS, whilst I try to find a mm of common ground with the people of yester years by respecting creator’s right to guide whom he wills, I from the out set do not wish to waste your time with lesser knowledge, that seeks to resolve problems of its own creation centuries down the line.

What is law then IMO? Rules, that if disobeyed carry some sort of penalty be it loss of wealth, liberty, freedoms, etc. These rules carry such weight, because it is the best way a country has agreed - or been forced to agree on - in controlling any behaviour deemed harmful to society.

The people of the book, believers have commandments, to obey, or examples to live by, through line of prophets. However, in a secular world, of global commerce and factoring in corruption of the true message from creator to mankind, we have societies engaged in their own law making and keeping order. Such societies, tend to be the upper classes and elitist, who profiteer from the status quo of a stable diet of takeaways upon the masses for instance. They thus cause problems like car crashes, because they have chosen to tarmac and create a motorway and wish mankind to drive and all get insured to not stop the flow of commerce. Anyone, questioning the norm, is suddenly a person of suspicion, in need of high surveillance be it through doctors, neighbours, e.t.c. Such persons movements need to be restricted their thoughts analysed, and their temperament tested by the state and its agents to see what risk if any they pose. This is all under the law. Lets thus take a breather and engage some non bias, analytical reasoning, of philosophers who became professionals in the loss of time in their own thoughts, and cite their works to balance these notes with token gestures of credibility that the forefathers have accepted as the model of sound mind on which to build modern laws, or for time’s sake find a professor instead (note this believer views image making a door to ruin) however if it saves one taking on interest in youth to meet such a person and hear her out, then lets make an exception:

Lecture: ‘What is Law?’ by Professor Dame Hazel Genn

**My Transcription of Lecture: ‘What is Law?’ by Professor. Dame Hazel Genn: **

Sir. William Blackstone, (18th lawyer, judge, academic at Oxford): “I think, in an undeniable position, that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which we live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar, and highly useful, I had almost said essential, part of a liberal and polite education.”

Well I don’t know whether we will achieve a competent knowledge of the law, but I hope we will provide a bit of general education on the Law of England and Wales.

So the aims of this course, the formal aims of this section of this course, are first of all for you to:

Have a basic understanding of the history of the common law.

To identify several key features of the English Legal System.

Recognise the way that the course works, what we expect of you, and how to be successful in doing the course.

But to start with, before we get into the history and the detail, I want to start with a very broad question.

Which is: WHAT IS LAW?

We are talking about the English Legal system, we are talking about the laws of the land; but what is Law? Now, you would think that was a very simple question to answer, but in-fact its one, that is quite difficult. It’s a question that has been struggled with, by legal theorists going back to Aristotle and Plato, and the question the people have struggled with is: What is the content of the law? and how do we recognise a rule as a Law?

Now we don’t have time to go into the complexities of those deep philosophical questions, and that is something you could do if you decide to go with the study of the law, but for the moment what I want to do is for us to think about it in a rather pragmatic way.

So, the starting point is that the Law is centrally concerned with the problem of social order. For human being to live together in a society, they need to have rules to govern how they are going to live. Rules can be of many different types: we have informal social rules (No ball games please respect other users, mind the gap) we have rules of behaviour, we have rules of dress, we have rules of conversation, and these social rules are complied with as a matter of convention. If you don’t follow the rule you might be the subject of social disapproval, or you might be excluded from a group. But, as societies become more developed and become more complex they need more formal rules for people to live together in an orderly way. So, for introductory purposes, what we can say is, that when we speak of the law, in a democratic society, what we are thinking about, are the rules that govern how we live, and how we do business and we are thinking about the rules that are backed by the coercive power of the state - What I mean by that is that these are rules that we have to obey and if we don’t obey these rules we will be made to pay some kind of a penalty, pay a fine, or perhaps go to prison.

So, when we talk about the law, we are talking about rules that we are obliged to follow. If we break a criminal law, then we may have to pay a fine or we may have to go to prison. If we break a none-criminal law, what we call a civil law we will usually have to pay money compensation, what I will call damages - there’s some legal terminology that you will get used to later on. Now this is not the idea, the idea that law is fundamentally concerned with order in society is not a new idea, I said it goes back, but people have been struggling with this since the time of Aristotle, and Aristotle put it very pithily (“A pithy comment or piece of writing is short, direct, and full of meaning”). Aristotle was a Greek critic, philosopher, err- in-who-err was err writing er many hundred of years even before the birth of Christ and what he said very simply is that: “law is order, and good law is good order.” So that underlines the idea, of what / the purpose of the law.

But then, moving along onto the concept of the Legal System. When we said / when we talk about the Legal System, what do we mean? The Legal system constitutes all of the bits of the law and the surrounding machinery of justice: So the legal system comprises of the laws - produce by law making bodies, parliament, legislature, judiciary and it also includes the institutions, processes and personal that contribute to the operation and enforcement of those laws. So when we talk about the legal system we are talking about the legislation - acts of parliament. Common Law - the decisions of judges in court. We are talking about the workings of the courts, we are talking about judges what judges do and how they are appointed, about legal professionals. Lawyers, solicitors, barristers - are the people who operate the law. We are also in the criminal context talking about the police, about the prosecutors, about juries and in a broader context we also talk about those organisations that support access to justice. So we are thinking about citizens advice bureau, we are thinking about the provisions of legal aid. All of institutions, all of these processes, all of these personnel, are part of the English Legal system and they provide the machinery for the justice system, to operate. Now later in the course we are going to talk about some of those institutions, processes, and personal, in much greater detail but for the moment I just want you to get a feel of what we are talking about when we talk about the English Legal System as a whole.

We talk about the English Legal System but those of you who live, in the United Kingdom will know, that it is made up of a number of different, jurisdictions, so the United Kingdom, is made of England, Wales, Soctand and Northern Ireland,. But, when we talk about the English Legal system we are talking about the laws of England and Wales, because Scotland and Northern Ireland, have different legal systems, in fact Scotland has laws that are completely unknown in England and Wales, and one of the things that you may want to be aware of is that Wales itself is becoming… is developing, its own jurisdictional differences and in time Wales itself may have a separate Legal System. But generally what we are talking about the English Legal system then we are focusing on the laws and machinery of the justice system in England and Wales and when we are talking about the English Legal system we are talking about the Law we need to have a sense of where the law comes from, what are the sources of law that we are going to be dealing about in this course.

There are basically four sources of English Law:, and the building behind me are:

English Parliament

On the top is the: Uk Supreme Court, below that the Royal Courts of Justice. Common law courts.

European Union.

European Court of Human Rights.

So our law comes from parliament, that is (in the form of): legislation, statutes, acts of parliament, written laws, I will talk more about that later on.

It comes from the common law decisions of judges sitting in courts, - supreme court, royal court of appeal, high court and so on.

But also, it comes from Europe. From the European Commision and European Council of Ministers as well as the European Court of Human Rights.

So looking at the English sources of the law: we have the Uk Supreme court, and other courts of record, that produce decisions that constitutes the common law and we have the UK Parliament that produces acts of parliament, statutes and legislation - the written law. So those are the two sources of English Law.

But we also have law that emanates from Europe which is directly applicable, within the English legal system, and these are law that come from the European Union, and are produced by the council of the European Union and the parliament council of ministers and European Union parliament and also their commision and they sit in Brussels, in Belgium.

But there is also law that emanates from the European Court of Human Rights, relating to the laws of the European Convention on Human Rights and in 1998 the UK Parliament incorporated, the European convention of Human Rights into English Law. So the European convention on Human Rights becomes a part of English Law, and that is an additional source of our law. So those are the sources of Law. Although there are, like I have said, there are statues, common law, and European union law, the most voluminous source of law in the English Legal system an probably for that reason, the most important source of law, is the common law. I want to spend a little bit of time on that, explaining what I mean by the common law, and thinking about how, the common law developed, many hundred years ago.

English Legal System > Machinery Institutions Processes > 4 Sources of law.

My notes added Sunday, 28th January 2018, Time: 8.55pm (below):

I have just finished listening to the lecture, its provided a useful insight and introduction into this vast field, interlinked and intertwined with different subject areas like history and philosophy. Before we build on this knowledge, lets consolidate it into memory for the purposes of passing any tests. The best way, is the quickest least taxing way, which for I at least, is not reading through pages of text straining eyes, but visualising and giving the text structure, just in a similar way the author/lecturer had on her notes before she delivered the knowledge. Thus we can map the knowledge by testing ourselves if we have grasped the subject matter sufficiently. One can do this by just getting a blank piece of paper or digital page and jotting down key points they can remember. They can then test using the syllabus whether they have covered and ticked off key definitions the examiner will be looking for if at school. Unfortunately, in a money making world, the test for intelligence is merely reciting words the examiner is seeking to find. This produces the A or A* for entry into an establishment where you can then read advance matter, justifying your own points of view using accepted theorists to critique and providing a logical framework and reasoning which your reader or professor can follow. We earn the right of such an esteemed person reading our works, having gone through a schooling equipping us with the tools to enable us to converse and engage with the esteemed, in the most succinct but persuasive way possible, thereby demonstrating complete mastery of the material but adding our own thoughts and opinions by tackling modern day matters that we both happen to be living through in present moment of times. The fact we must pay for our tuition so the professor can regurgitate his notes by delivery of his lectures by day, and do much more interesting/complex problem solving and research is neither here of there. We haven’t bought him, nor are we holding him to a contract, where he will give us his insight to our less developed answers to his script or paper, when he grades us. Instead, we expect this as a matter of courtesy to the venture we have both invested our times in and out of respect to our beloved subject. Hence, why must a student go knocking, or chasing, for his right to learn properly and to be shown the first class standard why is the answer secret?

So thus, lets build on the bank of key definitions, to ensure, our meanings of the words used are of the same standard. Then let’s stick to learning from any institution within our area of formal schooling, not least because a student less travelled, will have a nightmare understanding any twigg speaking with a scottish accent, when the student has never left his area. Thus even if his red brick area, may not be accepting of him (due to severe shortcomings to entry standards), necessitating him to meet unfair demands of attendance of University and career building - taxed on him by state through pressures felt by parents leading to their demands - via attendance in compromised institution in fields further away and consequently, making poor unsound, investment through large sums to get him there, one can at least engage in critique on paper with such a contracted authority or party that continuously calls seeking a payment for that injury.

A conduct of behaviour financially capitalising on a less developed mind, by diluting good accepted standards in the norm, and mis-selling funding, and using undue influence and pressures of sanctions once there, - should one seek criminal sanctions for the injury, distress and alarm or should one be grateful at a simple refund? What if you no longer were a student, but a country subjected to the same conditions, would you accept the “sorry” your people have suffered and treatment they have been burdened with and accept monetary redress alone, or would you rather, seek to prevent such abuse ever taking place by making the conduct criminal and proving it as such?

The law therefore becomes essential reading and learning of all citizens, this is a point Sir William Blackstone stresses in order to protect the civil liberties of the constitution. The law especially common law, is often evolving thus to be able to grasp it, and discern the problem of the days becomes a skill for all its citizens with time and scope to learn it. In doing so they protect the law and the agreements that are made under it, when these are not solely left by way of the professionals resolving disputes. In fact he says the reading should be inherent, just as a Roman learns his 12by12 Table.

He is also critical of those landed gentry, with fortune and ambition to represent their citizens in parliament running for candidacy, but who have never engaged in reading or developing a thorough understanding of prior laws:

"They are the guardians of the English constitution; the makers, repealers, and interpreters of the English laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous innovation, to propose, to adopt, and to cherish any solid and well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to transmit that constitution and those laws to posterity, amended if possible, at least without any derogation. And how unbecoming must it appear in a member of the legislature to vote for a new law, who is utterly ignorant of the old! what kind of interpretation can he be enabled to give, who is a stranger to the text upon which he comments! " 

REF:  Liberty Edition: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/blackstone-commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-in-four-books-vol-1/simple#lf1387-01_label_499 [Last Accessed:  at: 11:44PM, on: Saturday 28th of January 2018].Book: “Blackstone commentaries on the laws of england in four books -vol-1, 1973”Chapter: “INTRODUCTION, Of the Study, Nature, and Extent of the Laws of England.” SECTION I: “ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW,” 

When one factors in anyone can be called to jury service, as a lay member, to pass judgement of guilt on a criminal case, why then must lay be reduced to a standard of no knowledge, even knowing of the structure of the courts and procedure becomes vital. Thus when one engages with the reading of the law better than reading a tabloid, you produce a society that can express, and converse all to the same English standard. Many problems, corrupt /deliberate or otherwise, and injustices often take place and breed in conditions of poor grasp of the language and hide behind such individual appointments. Thus pursuit of the law, is an extension into Politics, English, History, Philosophy developing oratory sills and powers of reasoning, analysing and persuading, as well as defending facts and proper conduct, if the the standard or conduct is raised to the spoken word of fact, needless to say blanked rules of imposition caused from suspicion and improper onus, will no longer be subjected on masses when they are told you MUST sign on any council register confirming attendance. Instead the council of the day will be more trusting, tactful, and engaging to politely request any period of absence to instead be brought into its notification, in council-funded-private properties where the stay is outside of any stipulated or reasonable period of temporary agreement. Thus I am left in no doubt that when rogue elements bully using the power of the state as a fascade, to bring about loss of faith in the English system as a whole, they will not succeed, because on the evidence, if one ever engages with the written letter and reads the common law cases, they will appreciate the time, mental faculty and energy involved of giving any verdict with appreciation to the fundamental principles of the law. Thus any shortcomings, are more in my opinion, to do with vested use of power similar to bylaws given to councils instead where there is little accountability or recording of its use, due to business and money being made at the integrity of law’s expense and ultimately the human being.