2. The Budget and Parliament Law of the United Kingdom

Legal jurisdictions[edit]

For a more comprehensive list, see List of national legal systems.
See also: Proposed Wales criminal justice system
There are three distinct legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.^[5] Each has its own legal system, distinct history and origins.
There is a substantial overlap between these three legal systems and the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Unlike the other three, Welsh law is not a separate legal system per se, merely the primary and secondary legislation generated by the Senedd, interpreted in accordance with the doctrines of English law and not impacting upon English common law (except where such Welsh legislation ousts a common law rule by virtue of being a superior form of law).
The UK does not have a single legal system because it was created by the political union of previously independent countries. Article 19 of the Treaty of Union, put into effect by the Acts of Union in 1707, created the Kingdom of Great Britain but guaranteed the continued existence of Scotland's and England's separate legal systems.^[6] The Acts of Union of 1800, which joined Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, contained no equivalent provisions but preserved the principle of different courts to be held in Ireland, of which the part called Northern Ireland continues to follow as part of the United Kingdom.
Each legal system defaults to its jurisdiction, each of whose courts further that law through jurisprudence. Choice of which jurisdiction's law to use is possible in private law: For example, a company in Edinburgh, Scotland and a company in Belfast, Northern Ireland are free to contract in English law. This is not so in public law (for example, criminal law), where there are set rules of procedure in each jurisdiction.

Structure and history[edit]

Although Scotland and Northern Ireland form part of the United Kingdom and share Westminster as a primary legislature, they have separate legal systems. (Even though Scotland became part of the UK over 300 years ago, Scots law has remained remarkably distinct from English law). The UK's highest civil appeal court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, whose decisions are binding on all three UK jurisdictions, as in Donoghue v Stevenson, a Scots case that forms the basis of the UK's law of negligence.^[7]
"Great Britain" means England, Wales, Scotland, their adjacent territorial waters and the islands of Orkney and Shetland, the Hebrides and, by virtue of the Island of Rockall Act 1972, Rockall. "United Kingdom" means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and their adjacent territorial waters, but not the Isle of Man, nor the Channel Islands, whose independent status was discussed in Rover International Ltd. v Canon Film Sales Ltd. (1987)^[8] and Chloride Industrial Batteries Ltd. v F. & W. Freight Ltd. (1989).^[9] "British Islands" – but not "British
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_United_Kingdom
The first schedule of the Interpretation Act 1978, defines the following terms: "British Islands", "England", and "United Kingdom". The use of the term "British Isles" is virtually obsolete in statutes and, when it does appear, it is taken to be synonymous with "British Islands". For interpretation purposes, England includes a number of specified elements:

• 
  Wales and Berwick Act 1746, section 3 (entire Act now repealed) formally incorporated Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed into England. But section 4 Welsh Language Act 1967 provided that references to England in future Acts of Parliament should no longer include Wales (see now Interpretation Act 1978, Schedule 3, part 1). But Dicey & Morris say (at p28) "It seems desirable to adhere to Dicey's (the original) definition for reasons of convenience and especially of brevity. It would be cumbersome to have to add "or Wales" after "England" and "or Welsh" after "English" every time those words are used."
  
• 
  the "adjacent islands" of the Isle of Wight and Anglesey are a part of England and Wales by custom, while Harman v Bolt (1931)^[10] expressly confirms that Lundy is a part of England.
  
• 
  the "adjacent territorial waters" by virtue of the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act 1878 and the Continental Shelf Act 1964 as amended by the Oil and Gas (Enterprise) Act 1982.
  

England and Wales[edit]

Main article: English and Welsh law

The Royal Courts of Justice in London, home of the Senior Courts of England and Wales
English and Welsh law (or just English law) refers to the legal system administered by the courts in England and Wales, which rule on both civil and criminal matters. English and Welsh law is based on the principles of common law.^[11] English and Welsh law can be described as having its own legal doctrine, distinct from civil law legal systems since 1189.
There has been no major codification of the law, rather the law is developed by judges in court, applying statute, precedent and case-by-case reasoning to give explanatory judgments of the relevant legal principles. These judgments are binding in future similar cases (stare decisis), and for this reason are often reported in law reports.
The courts of England and Wales are headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice (for civil cases) and the Crown Court (for criminal cases). The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land for both criminal and civil appeal cases in England and Wales (also in Northern Ireland cases and civil cases in Scots law) and any decision it makes is binding on every other court in the same jurisdiction, and often has persuasive effect in its other jurisdictions.^[12]
On appeal, a court may overrule the decisions of its inferior courts, such as county courts (civil) and magistrates' courts (criminal). The High Court may also quash on judicial review both administrative decisions of the Government and delegated legislation. Before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom was created in October 2009, the highest appellate body was the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, usually just referred to as "The House of Lords".^[12]
After the Acts of Union, in 1707 English law became one of two legal systems in different parts of the same United Kingdom and has been influenced by Scots law, most notably in the development and integration of the law merchant by Lord Mansfield and in time the development of the law of negligence. Scottish influence may have influenced the abolition of the forms of action in the nineteenth
: British Overseas Territories
century accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities in 1973, English law has also been affected by European law under the Treaty of Rome.