Scots Law Notes > Scottish Legal System Notes
This is an extract of our Sources Of Law In The Uk document, which we sell as part of our Scottish Legal System Notes collection written by the top tier of The University Of Edinburgh students.
The following is a more accessble plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Scottish Legal System Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:
I.
Sources of Law in the UK
There are different ways to categorise sources of law a) Enacted law: legislation in the form of acts and statutes
Unenacted law: case law and institutional writings b) Primary sources 1- Legislation:
- EU legislation
- Acts of UK parliament (statutes)
- Acts of Scottish Parliament
- Statutory Instruments 2- Case law 3- Institutional writings
Secondary sources 1- Legal literature 2- Custom
Hierarchy of sources:
1- EU Law 2- UK Law 3- Acts of the Scottish Parliament 4- Secondary Legislation (statutory instruments)
Later legislation inconsistent with earlier legislation takes priority
Laws made by acts of parliament can reverse decisions of acts of courts
(legislation has authority over case law)
legislation is interpreted by the courts so courts can have their own interpretation of what this legislation is, but parliament can disagree with this interpretation
But legislation that is passed on UK level can apply to all legal systems in the
UK (Example: tax legislation-revenue law)
But interpretation of this legislation could vary within legal systems
Codification: setting out common law in legislative form
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