Role and Necessity of Law

Role of Law

• Law establishes fundamental behavioral standards that the government enforces.
• Law helps to maintain social order by dealing with disorder and conflict.
• Rule of Law is the principle that all people are treated equally under the law, and the government also abides by it.
• Law serves as a formal mechanism of social control.

Why Law is Necessary

• Law governs conduct to protect individuals, property, and society, also punishing illegal actions.
• Public Law allows the government to act for society's benefit.
• Public Law allows to create and regulate essential services like policing, firefighting, education, and healthcare.
• Private Law governs relationships between individuals and enforces binding agreements, thus providing a forum to resolve disputes that may arise.

Comparison of Laws, Morals, and Ethics

• Compliance with the law is mandatory, whereas morals and ethics, representing ideal behaviors, are optional.
• Just laws are essential for voluntary societal compliance.
• Laws often derive from society's accepted morals.
• Law sets the minimum acceptable standard for the majority in society.
• Morals and ethics establish a higher standard than law.
• Morality and law are both ideological, reflecting and justifying social and economic relationships.

Parliament-Made Laws in the UK

• Parliament holds the responsibility for enacting most laws in the UK.
• These laws are specified in Acts of Parliament or Statutes.
• European Law impacts UK laws, due to which the Parliament's independence is limited.

State Jurisdiction

• The laws of a country are binding only within its territory.

Forms of Legal Liability

• Legal liability refers to the responsibility for consequences when laws are broken.
• Constitution grants the Government power to make laws.
• Legislation involves statutes or Acts enacted by Parliament.
• Courts create judge-made law, also known as common law.
• Judges follow the principle of stare decisis, adhering to precedents from previous decisions.
• Common law applies unless a statute dictates otherwise.
• Judges hold the ability to administer both equitable and legal remedies.

Definition of Law

• Law consists of rules created by the state, binding within its jurisdiction.
• The rules are enforced by the state through sanctions.
• Law possesses four elements: rules, creation by the state, jurisdiction of the state, and state enforcement.

Characteristics of English Law

• English Law traces back to the Norman Conquest in 1066.
• English Law has evolved gradually.
• It has been influenced a little by Roman law.
• Judges were the primary lawmakers.
• It has binding precedent.
• It is adversarial or inquisitorial.

Common Law vs Civil Law

• Common law includes legal systems adopting the historic English legal system, such as in the US.
• Civil law is used in jurisdictions following the European continental system.
• Civil law derives from ancient Roman law with Germanic tradition influence.
• Common law arose from political power struggles, establishing a unitary system under a sovereign king after the Norman Conquest in England in 1066.
• Decisions in equity courts established principles for later cases, ensuring judicial discretion was not based merely on personal opinions.

Common Law: Differences and Disadvantages

• Common law is case-centered and judge-centered, permitting discretionary approaches.
• The civil law system follows a codified structure of general rules controlling judicial discretion.
• Common law overemphasizes judicial discretion, while civil law underestimates it.

Common Law Remedies

• Damages aims to compensate a wronged individual.
• Common law damages split into:
  • Compensatory damages serve as standard recompense that doesn't over-recompense the injured party, and contractual ones are solely compensatory.
  • Aggravated damages act as extra compensation for dignity and pride damages, similar to awards regarding mental distress.
  • Exemplary damages act as additional awards in tort cases if the tortfeasor aimed to earn profits from that tort, e.g. libel cases to increase sales.
  • Nominal damages get awarded over a principle, but without loss to reputation while having negligible award amounts.
  • Contemptuous damages are very small awards for claimants winning cases despite experiencing no loss or causing poor impressions on the court.

Equitable Remedies

• Equitable remedies are discretionary, awarded based on the court's judgment of the situation and behavior of the claiming party.
• Usual equitable remedies:
• Injunctions are court orders to take or stop certain actions.
• Specific performance are orders requiring completion of contractual duties, usually impacting sales of land and only when supervision of these orders works.
• Rectification enacts alterations to extremely limited contractual documents.
• Rescission puts agreement contractors back into their previous pre-contractual positions, which is very different to common law damage awards doing opposite and placing people to positions after contracts got completed successfully.

Common Law vs Statute Law

• Common law encompasses substantive law and procedural rules established by the judiciary through case decisions.
• Statute law consists of laws created by Parliament via legislation.

Public Law versus Private Law

• Public law addresses the State and its agents' actions, concerning how these relationships occur legally and are regulated.
• The State must protect the public and prosecute threats.
• Private law addresses individual matters and their regulations without state interference.
• Public and private law gets further divided into civil and criminal law, where the former is private and the latter is public.

Public Law

• Regulates government conduct and its interactions with private individuals.
• Addresses the individual, citizens, or corporations.
• Protection and prosecution falls under the state.
• Public law addresses issues affecting the general public or the state.
• Public law wields a greater scope.

Private Law

• Concerned with relationships between specific individuals or private entities.
• Applies only to individuals.
• State interference can be limited when regulating individual regulatory measures to decide contentious issues and mechanisms to enforce them.
• Issues affecting individuals or corporations get focused on more.
• Private law wields a more specific scope.

Civil Law vs Criminal Law

• Civil law deals with disputes involving private entities and offers remedies.
• Criminal law targets behaviors the State seeks to regulate or eradicate, maintaining social order via punishment and deterrence of crimes.

Legal Procedures

• Civil cases get handled by private parties, while criminal cases get handled by the State.
• Civil cases go by names like Smith vs Williams and criminal cases go by Regina vs accused.

Relevant People and their Roles

• Civil cases feature the plaintiff/claimant is the alleged victim, and the defendant is the one being sued.
• Criminal cases feature government prosecutors from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the one who files any cases, the ones charged for crimes are defendants, and victims may act as witnesses.

Rights of the Concerned Parties

• Some dissimilarities can further be noticed in the rights of the people involved.
• Civil lawsuits make disputing parties responsible for paying for all legal fees (attorneys, costs, etc.)
• Criminal proceedings provide council, jury, speedy trials, and freedom of self incrimination, searches, and seizures.

Verdict, Burden of Proof, and Remedies

• Verdicts, proof, and remedies depend on the type of court cases it is.
• Civil lawsuit judges declare liabilities for compensations to claimants.
• Civil law requires 51% balanced probability for convictions to be valid.
• Criminal law proceedings have juries declaring innocence or guilt.
• Criminal cases' convictions need 98% assurances to be valid.
• Civil law provides compensations due to not punishing anyone.
• Criminal proceedings feature jailtimes and community service, therefore acting as forms of punishments.

Burden of Proof

• The onus of proving facts gets denoted to the person who alleges the case.
• Defendants can prove their lack of culpability.

Civil Law Examples

• Custody disputes, bankruptcy, divorce, breach of contract, and property damage are civil legal matters.

Criminal Law Examples

• Crime examples feature homicide, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, assault, and controlled substance possession.

Dual Liability

• Dual liability involves cases with hybrid offences.
• Assault cases entail both civil and criminal matters.
• Assault is a crime when someone strikes and injures to damage Criminal Code laws.
• Injured victims experiencing pain may sue offenders in court to damage fees as compensations.

Legal Terminology

• Claimants or Plaintiffs file civil lawsuits. Claimants can be people, governments, or school districts.
• Defendant is the person being sued in civil cases and someone charged for a crime in criminal cases.
• Civil Lawsuit is an entire proceeding upon filing paperwork against defendants, even including all motions and judgement.
• Criminal Proceedings enact cases upon detaining and charging peoples until sentences.
• Jurisdiction holds the legal power for courts to decide relevant geographic and legal matters.
• Civil cases feature claimants and defendants.
• Criminal cases feature the crown, defendants, and accused defense councils.
• Appeals feature the defendant and respondent.
• Common law involves judge-made laws.

European Union Overview

• 28 democratic European countries make up the unique economic and political partnership in the EU.
• The EU aims for peace, prosperity, and freedom for its 500 million citizens, so it advances toward a fairer and safer world.

What the EU Achieved so far

• Frontier-free travel and trade.
• Common currency euro.
• Safe food, greener environment, and better living standards.
• Action on crime and terror.
• Low phone calls and study opportunities abroad.

How the EU operates and is regulated

• EU countries have several bodies running and managing legislation in the EU.
• European Parliament embodies peoples of Europes interests.
• Council of the European Union embodies national government.
• European Commission embodies interests of the EU itself.
• Various bodies like European Council and Court of Justice also regulate the EU.

Member Countries of the EU

• Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Founding Fathers of the EU

• Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, Winston Churchill, Jean Monnet, and Robert Schuman.

Symbols of the EU

• The European flag displays twelve golden stars that embody unity, solidarity, and harmony.
• The official currency of 18/28 EU Nations is the Euro, which replaced former ECUs to trade on World Financial markets around January 1st, 1999.
• EU nations not using Euro include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK.
• Euro coins and Notes entered circulation on January 1st, 2002 and are free to use within the Eurozone, whereby Coins have national symbols and notes have no nations sides.
• There is also the European Anthem.
• There is Europe Day on May 9th to spread world peace around various European Nations.
• The motto is "United in diversity."
• Instead of passports, EU member-states share a burgundy design with member states by using common wording and features/biometrics.

European Union, Coal, and Security Agreements

• UK joined back in 1973 to join the EEC.
• Agreements like Maastricht Treaty occur around the 1992 timeframe to enact various treaties.
• 3 pillared agreements:
• European Coal and Steel Community
• European Atomic Energy Community Treaty
• Economic Community
• Common Foreign and Security Policy
• Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters
• There exists 28 sovereign EU members that encompass around 4 million sq km and 503 million inhabitants, thereby necessitating such structured agreements.

5 Major EU Institutions

• Decision making features Supranational Institutions where member states decide themselves and Intergovernmental Negotiations which allow all member states to come together. The main institutions:
• The European Council
• The European Committee
• The Courts of the EU
• The European Parliament

Council of EU

• It represents the Member States' governments.
• National ministers from countries meet and adopt various laws.
• Jointly acts alongside Parliament to legislate and use Unanimity or Qualified Majority Voting, which weighs members' votes.
• EU countries' governments get represented to coordinate policy.
• The legislative organ has one governmental minister and member-state, varying those representatives via subjects.
• Consisting ministerial reps and 28 member states, the makeup varies via matter to be considered, such as ECOFIN financial matters.

European Council

• The council consists of member state governments heads and a permanent president that organizes the council meetings.
• Those same heads of State meet with the president to stimulate policy activities through “European Summits.”
• National governments also council to define the unions directions.
• The president, who gets elected with 2.5 year terms, handles such meetings and does not pass laws nor amend EU Treaties.
• Composed the heads of state, the director of the council defines political priorities whilst meeting twice in 6 months and making consensus-backed decisions under presidency.

European Commission

• European Commission bodies handle and manage the execution of EU Policy.
• It manages and monitors the members to comply with EU Laws.
• Under president Ursula Von der Leyen, member states choose the various commission posts, which feature up to 28 members for a 5-year terms.
• This commission is the main executive body and uses its "right to initiative" for new laws; which gets managed through EU Polices CFSP, Presidents, and budgets.
• Commission’s work with EU is complemented by judicial institutions.
• In pursuit of treaty policy, EU Treaty obligations are met and laws get enforced.
• Consisting of executive and police heads, those responsible enact policies and legislative powers; and serve up to 27 commissions.

European Parliament

• The only directly elected institution of the EU has 751 members once elected every 5 years since 1979.
• Alongside legislative laws, it monitors EU budgets and committees through cities D.C., Luxembourg, and Strasbourg.
• Democratic and directly elected for 736 members, it ensures democratic legal operations.

European Court of Justice

• The CJEU is the EU legal arm and its judgments trump those of national courts, with 27 and 8 Advocates helping look at various aspects, procedures, and impacts of European Law, such as enforcing EU actions when countries face the court.
• The Court ensures the correct interpretation while reviewing legality.
• The court functions through one judge and 11 general advocators.

Functions of the EU Court of Justice

1. Interprets points of EU law to serve nations legally.
2. Decide breaches and measures whether obligations exist or if measures are compatible with obligations.

• The CJEU can issue preliminary ruling after one passes through national legislation.

ECJ (European of Justice) Disadvantages

• Requirements to have French lawyers alongside delays and prices.
• About 70% of cases fail because they fail to follow procedure.

Various Resources of European Law

• EU Law holds many direct effects on members. If it holds states that individuals retain their own rights, then action is needed to get government help by allowing said individuals to use EU Provisos against others.
  • Vertical Effects impact help in government relations.
  • Horizontal Action impacts people with provision actions.
• EU is run by internal treaties superseding various domestic treaty protocols such being mandatory nature and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997.

Various Treaty Articles

• Article 2 indicates the treaties where the Union can legislate only.
• Article 3 gives competencies on internal markets, monetary policies, conservation, and commercial policies.
• Art 3 indicates conclusions for international agreement when enable unions and affect rules. Regulations:
• Are binding and enforceable by examples. Directives:
• Domestic law implements its examples.. Decisions:
• Affect a state or individual when violations occur.

Sources of UK Law

• European Law, Parliaments, and Courts regulate and legislate nations like the UK.

Secondary Litigation Treaty

• The objectives of the EU are laid by articles to ratify decisions made with states via referendums. Regulations:
• Implement laws and EU countries must publish all things in the Journal. Directives:
• Enable countries act when adopting, using, transpiring, and seeking fees with 2-year terms.

Decisions

• Those affected can choose to get involved with European law if States or officials aim towards them.

UK Parliament

• Parliament holds the power to execute Government authority and local hierarchy.
• Government consists of various executives and local corporations.
• Judiciary handles court systems.

Legislature and its Legislators

• The queen can sign certain laws with monarchs, whilst legislative powers get enabled by elected members and the House of Commons.
• Various functions exist for legislations to occur, such scrutinizing the world and creating the taxation that debated with government policies.
• Governments consist of ministers and officials chosen under the Prime Minister.

Domestic and Parliaments

• A parliament holds such power through means that the state sees fit to use and alter by allowing acts, revoking, and having no predecessor.
• Various legislative processes exist with certain elements like the houses of commons and lords, alongside monarchs seeking bills and government consultation over white and green papers.
• Those steps feature three hearings at Commons with financial bills; going though committee stages; and considering reports to seek royal asse