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Smith, Damian --- "England and Wales" [2006] ELECD 174; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420130

Section: Chapter 23

Section Title: England and Wales

Author(s): Smith, Damian

Number of pages: 5

Extract:

23 England and Wales
Damian Smith


1 Introduction
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (`The United
Kingdom') is composed of England, Scotland and Wales (together, `Great
Britain') and Northern Ireland. While England and Wales share a legal
system and set of civil procedural rules, Scotland and Northern Ireland
have their own systems. The Northern Irish legal system mirrors, to a broad
extent, the English system. The same cannot be said of Scottish law.
England and Wales constitute a common law jurisdiction. In the absence
of a civil law code, English laws are set out in primary and secondary leg-
islation and in landmark legal judgments. Depending upon the level of the
court in which a judgment is given, a legal judgment may constitute a prece-
dent. The ratio decidendi of a court's judgment might, accordingly, be
binding upon other courts dealing with similar matters. This is considered
further below.
In practice, English is the language that is predominantly used in all
the courts of England and Wales. Nevertheless, pursuant to the Welsh
Language Act 1993, Welsh may be used in proceedings before courts situ-
ated in Wales. In most other cases, the use of the Welsh language in English
courts will be subject to the judge's permission.

2 Constitutional law
The constitution of the United Kingdom is often described as being
`unwritten'. While the United Kingdom's constitution is not contained
within a single written document, many of its contents are reduced into
writing. Consider, ...