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The United Kingdom is a funny place as far as law is concerned because
a)there is no written constitution, a document setting out out certain basic rights and responsibilities
b)England and Wales have some different laws from Scotland and Northern Ireland and now Wales is starting to have different laws from England and
c)in England there are four different ways that laws can be made and changed
- 1 Acts of Parliament
- 2 Courts (judicial decisions)
- 3 EU Directives
- 4 Common Law
1 Acts of Parliament
Bills (suggested legislation or laws) are presented by Members of Parliament – usually on behalf of the government - to Parliament to be decided on. If the Bill is passed by both Houses of Parliament it will then get the Queen's approval called the Royal Assent (these days she always gives it but the monarch didn't always) Once a Bill receives Royal Assent, it becomes an Act of Parliament.
[Copies of public Bills are available from Her Majesty's Stationery Office or on the website of the Houses of Parliament: www.publications.parliament.uk]
One example of an Act that has recently come into effect is Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003.
This increases the powers given to the police and local authorities to deal with anti-social behaviour including expanding the Fixed Penalty Notice scheme to apply to 16/17 year olds and covers noise, truancy, and graffiti.
2 Judicial decisions
Other changes can be made to our laws by cases referred to the High Court, or Court of Appeal, or European Court of Justice. In court the judges look at the law and interpret what the politicians said and sometimes the lawyers can say that Parliament got things wrong and eventually after going to higher and higher courts a final decision is made and this decision can change the law.
3 EU Directives
These are enforced in each EU member state within a certain time, usually two years or a time specified in the Directive itself. A Directive is implemented in the UK by an Act of Parliament, so the UK government has some control over the means of enforcing it in the UK.
4 Common Law
Laws that have been created over the years by judicial decisions, or through examples of local custom and practice but which aren’t contained in a specific Act are known as ‘common law’. These are some of the oldest laws in the country and go back hundreds of years an example of this is murder.
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