Legal Studies 1

Running Head: Legal Studies

Legal Studies
[Name of the Student]
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 LEGAL STUDIES

Introduction

The aim of this essay is to focus on the legal case studies and tasks related to it. The case
study is about the legal system of England and Wales especially when it is a claim and
compensation case. The paper will further discuss about the effects of European Law on case law
and UK statutory law. In addition, the discussion will be emphasizing on the importance of UK
statute law and case law as both are main sources of English Law, their relationship with one
another and how both sources have an impact on Englands legal system. According to the case
study, the owner will be provided with the legal advices by his newly hired Contract Negotiator
as his first tasks and the tasks are related to English law and procedures. Furthermore, the
discussion continues about the costs involved in taking legal action through the courts,
advantages of mediation and effects of Civil Procedure Rules 1998 on pre-trial conducts. The
other aspects of this essay are about the legislature and judicial law regarding evaluation and
reforms for the claim and compensation culture in England and Wales as it is influencing the area
of law extremely by means of blame and sue society. In addition to, the legal systems within
the United Kingdom are largely based on case law (law made through decisions by judges).
Especially, when it comes to claim and compensation cases, the overall decisions are based on
case laws and legal procedures followed according to English Law.

Discussion

Task 1

Importance of case law and UK statute law as sources of English law

English law is the legal system governing England and Wales comprising criminal and
civil law. The four principal sources of United Kingdoms law are legislation, common law
(which is mainly based on Case Law and UK Statute Law), European Union law and the
European Convention on Human Rights. There is no single series of documents that contains the
whole of the law of the United Kingdom. The English Law is considered to be as one of the
finest and oldest legal system in the Europe. English Law has many sources and decrees through
which it flourishes and get new legal procedures. The legal system of England and Wales is
practically a common law based, so the decisions of the senior appellate courts become part of
the law. Also, the United Kingdom is a Member State of the European Union (EU), which means
that EU law takes precedence over UK law. For practical purposes, the most significant
distinction is between civil law and criminal law. Civil law covers such areas as contracts,
negligence, family matters, employment, probate and land law. However, the UK Case Law and
UK Statute Law are key sources of English law. These legal procedures are different in nature
but they both have their importance in English Law and maintains a prominent relationship with
each other. Briefly explained, in a case law, regime courts have more suppleness than in UK
statute law regime. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most flex decisions are already taken.
Therefore, the advantage of flexibility for Case Law is unavoidably paired with the potential for
time-inconsistency.

The importance of case law and UK statutory law as sources of English Law can be
easily grasped by understanding the nature of case law and statutory law. For instance,
a common law legal system is characterized by case law developed by judges, courts, and similar
tribunals, when giving decisions in individual cases that have precedential effect on future cases.
The basic principle of Case Law. Whereas, Statute Law is law that is written down and codified
into law which begins as bills taken into consideration at parliament a public and private bills.
Public Acts are those that affect either the whole of the UK or some of its constituent countries
whereas private acts may grant limited powers to public bodies such as local authorities or
applied only to specific locations within the UK.

The relationship between case law and UK statuary law is that Case law is runs parallel
with Statute law. According to Posner (2003, judge-made laws are more efficient than statutes
mainly because Courts, unlike legislators, have personal incentives to maximize efficiency. Act
of parliament always holds a great importance in this regard. Statutes can be applied to all or any
combination of jurisdictions within the United Kingdom, whereas the common law jurisdictions
are more limited. Acts of Parliament which apply to everyone throughout one or more
jurisdictions are called public general Acts. But Acts may also be limited to geographical
locations within a jurisdiction or to specific persons or companies. Under Statute Law, all Courts
are constrained to behave in the same way whereas under Case Law, each Court may be either
constrained by precedents. In addition to, Under Case Law, Courts may be tempted to behave
myopically and neglect ex-ante welfare because, ex-post, this may afford extra gains from trade
for the parties currently in Court. The temptation to behave myopically is traded off against the
effect of a Court's ruling, as a precedent, on the rulings of future Courts. When Case Law
matures this temptation prevails and Case Law Courts succumb to the time-inconsistency
problem. Statute Law, on the other hand pairs the lack of flexibility with the ability to commit in
advance to a given rule. This solves the time-inconsistency problem afflicting the Case Law
Courts.

Furthermore, to understand the effect of European Law on Case law and statutory law,
the historical background must be taken into consideration. The United Kingdom joined the
European Union on the 1 January 1973. European law was incorporated into UK law by the
European Communities Act 1972. According to Section 2(1) of the European Communities Act
1972 states that all such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and limitations from time to time
shaped or arising under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time
provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further
enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognized and
available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly. The effect of European law
on case law and statute law is that it must be considered to be a valid and binding source of UK
law. Where European law exists on a particular subject, it can supersede any varying UK law -
including Acts of Parliament. In this way the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty is
compromised as membership of the EC has compromised this principle (Reich 2005). EU law
also affect the way English legal system addresses the rights of Britain United Kingdom citizens.
Other areas of court law and statutory law affected by European law include agriculture,
companies, fishing, competition, free movement of goods and workers, consumer policy,
education, health and environment.

Task 2

Benefits of Mediation

According to the given case study and appropriate task, the benefits of mediation between
two parties on a certain conflict of claim and compensation case may have influential and fruitful
outcomes overall as mediation leads to several solutions for this conflict outside the court which
gives advantage to both the parties to evade the hassle and costs of legal proceedings. For
instance, mediation is comparatively low-cost while seeing a case through trial is a costly
proposition. Furthermore, mediation is relatively simple as there are no legal complex procedural
or evidentiary rules which must be followed. Also, mediation allows the parties to revise and
adjust the scope of their conflict as flexibility increases when negotiators act as problem-solvers
instead of adversaries. Mediation is relatively swift as there is no dearth of mediators willing to
assist parties and their goal is to ty to settle the matter. In addition to, mediation allows for
flexible solutions and settlements as the relief available in court is usually based on pecuniary
damages and equitable relief is hard to come by whereas, in mediation, however, the parties can
agree to a settlement requiring or restraining action by one party which was not originally
envisioned as something beneficial to other party. In addition to, the settlements reached in
mediation are more agreeable to both parties than court judgements because any settlement
arrived at through negotiation is necessarily agreed to voluntarily by both parties, obligations
under the agreement are more likely to be fulfilled than obligations imposed by a court and legal
framework.

Effect of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and the Practice Direction on pre-trial conduct

In further discussion, this paper will overview the effects of Civil Procedure Rules 1998
on pre-trial conduct. According to the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, these rules are a new
procedural code with the overriding objective of enabling the court to deal with the cases justly.
The effects of practice directions of these rules on pre-trial conduct are to ensure that the parties
are on equal footing, to save expenses, to deal with the case accordingly in which the amount of
money is involved, importance of case is viewed, complexity of the issues and the financial
position of each party were also taken into consideration, it is to ensure that fair and expeditious
trial is taken into consideration and allotting the trials an appropriate share of the courts
resources while taking into account the need to allot resources to other cases as well.

Additionally, the effect of Civil Procedure Rules 1998 on pre-trial conduct is that courts
will encourage the parties to co-operate with each other in the conduct of the proceedings, the
issues were identified at early stage, the order in which issues are to be resolve will be decided, it
encourage the parties to use an alternative dispute resolution facilitated by the courts, the rules
will help the parties to settle the whole or part of the case, it helps in dealing the case with as
many aspects as it can on the same occasion, the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 also undermine to
use the best technology while giving the directions to ensure that the trial of a case proceeds
quickly and efficiently.

Case Costs if a client continues to refuse mediation

There are many grounds on which the client refuses to mediate and ultimately the
outcome is highly expensive for both ends and hassle of handling legal proceedings is
another addition. The grounds on which the client may refuse to mediate are that he
believes he has a watertight case even both parties have binary position having no middle
grounds. The costs of mediation appear disproportionate to the value of the claim according
to the client but as a matter of fact mediation is less costly for both parties. Given that the
claimed costs by client for compensation were 5000, the employer (defendant) has to swallow
a difficult pill when going for a trial in courts. It will cost him the extra expenses of each court
proceeding and the penalties imposed by court as well if the employer will not be able to defend his
grounds for the case against his clients claims. However, the legal proceeding will cost both the
parties.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the outcome of discussion of this paper is that the common law (case law)
which comprises of civil and criminal proceedings has a great impact on English legal system as
they are directly involved in benefit of the Britishs common public when it comes to blame and
sue culture. Furthermore, European law has its roots in Case Law and UK Statutory Law as
England is a member of European Union and must act upon the legal system emphasized by
European Law. In addition to, the mediation process has many benefits over legal trials as it
solves most conflicts of the parties while avoiding hassles of court proceedings and heavy
expenses. However, if parties dont accept mediation than they have to face legal procedures and
costs to maintain the continuity as in the end of trials both have to face penalties or heavy
amount of claims and compensation.
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