The United Kingdom has three distinctly different legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English and Welsh law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007, calls for a fourth type that of purely Welsh law as a result of Welsh devolution, with further calls for a Welsh justice system.
The constitution of the United Kingdom is an uncodified constitution made up of various statutes, judicial precedents, convention, treaties and other sources. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the constitution developed gradually in response to various crises. By the 20th century, the British monarchy had become a constitutional and ceremonial monarchy, and Parliament developed into a representative body exercising parliamentary sovereignty.
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the estates of lunatics and the guardianship of infants.
The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Prior to the union of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. There were Lord Chancellors of Ireland until 1922.
A legislative consent motion is a motion passed by either the Scottish Parliament, Senedd, or Northern Ireland Assembly, in which it consents that the Parliament of the United Kingdom may pass legislation on a devolved issue over which the devolved government has regular legislative authority.
Gerald Austin Gardiner, Baron Gardiner, was a British Labour politician, who served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1964 to 1970. In that position he embarked on a programme of reform, most importantly setting up the Law Commission in 1965.
The Law Officers are the senior legal advisors to His Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom and devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They are variously referred to as the Attorney General, Solicitor General, Lord Advocate, or Advocate General depending on seniority and geography - though other terms are also in use, such as the Counsel General for Wales. Law Officers in these roles are distinguished by being political appointees, while also being bound by the duties of independence, justice and confidentiality among the other typical professional commitments of lawyers. These roles do not have any direct oversight of prosecutions nor do they directly lead or influence criminal investigations. This is a distinguishing factor between Law Officers and the State Attorneys General of the United States or US Attorney General.
The Scottish Law Commission is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. It was established in 1965 to keep Scots law under review and recommend necessary reforms to improve, simplify and update the country's legal system. It was established by the Law Commissions Act 1965 at the same time as the Law Commission in England and Wales.
The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is an independent commission that selects candidates for judicial office in courts and tribunals in England and Wales and for some tribunals whose jurisdiction extends to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were, in England and Wales, a body corporate, whose full title was Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commissioners for England. The commissioners were authorised to determine the distribution of revenues of the Church of England, and they made extensive changes in how revenues were distributed. The modern successor body thereof are the Church Commissioners.
Welsh law is an autonomous part of the English law system composed of legislation made by the Senedd. Wales is part of the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales, one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. However, due to devolution, the law in Wales is increasingly distinct from the law in England, since the Senedd, the devolved parliament of Wales, can legislate on non-reserved matters.
In England and Wales the Law Commission is an independent law commission set up by Parliament by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reforms. The organisation is headed by a Chairman and four Law Commissioners. It proposes changes to the law that will make the law simpler, more accessible, fairer, modern and more cost-effective. It consults widely on its proposals and in the light of the responses to public consultation, it presents recommendations to the UK Parliament that, if legislated upon, would implement its law reform recommendations. The commission is part of the Commonwealth Association of Law Reform Agencies.
Scots criminal law relies far more heavily on common law than in England and Wales. Scottish criminal law includes offences against the person of murder, culpable homicide, rape and assault, offences against property such as theft and malicious mischief, and public order offences including mobbing and breach of the peace. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statutes of the UK Parliament with some areas of criminal law, such as misuse of drugs and traffic offences appearing identical on both sides of the Border. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statute books of the Scottish Parliament such as the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and Prostitution (Scotland) Act 2007 which only apply to Scotland. In fact, the Scots requirement of corroboration in criminal matters changes the practical prosecution of crimes derived from the same enactment. Corroboration is not required in England or in civil cases in Scotland. Scots law is one of the few legal systems that require corroboration.
In British law and in some related legal systems, an enactment is spent if it is "exhausted in operation by the accomplishment of the purposes for which it was enacted".
The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the legal profession and courts of England and Wales. The Act was the culmination of a series of reports and reforms that started with the Benson Commission in the 1970s, and significantly changed the way that the legal profession and court system worked.
The constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is a hybrid or mixed legal system containing civil law and common law elements, that traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. Together with English law and Northern Irish law, it is one of the three legal systems of the United Kingdom. Scots law recognises four sources of law: legislation, legal precedent, specific academic writings, and custom. Legislation affecting Scotland and Scots law is passed by the Scottish Parliament on all areas of devolved responsibility, and the United Kingdom Parliament on reserved matters. Some legislation passed by the pre-1707 Parliament of Scotland is still also valid.
Statute law revision may refer to the printing of, or the editorial process of preparing, a revised edition of the statutes, or to the process of repealing obsolete enactments to facilitate the preparation of such an edition, or to facilitate the consolidation of enactments.
Federalism in the United Kingdom aims at constitutional reform to achieve a federal UK or a British federation, where there is a division of legislative powers between two or more levels of government, so that sovereignty is decentralised between a federal government and autonomous governments in a federal system.
The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill is a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament. The bill seeks to amend the Gender Recognition Act 2004 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, making it simpler for people to change their legal gender. On 17 January 2023, the United Kingdom government used section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to block the bill from receiving royal assent, the first time section 35 has been used.
