1. How many sources of law have been enumerated in the text?
2. What are they?
3. What is the main category of Statute Law?
4. What is the basis of Common Law?
5. What is the difference between Common Law and Equity Law?
6. What is the basis of European Law?
Exercise 9
Fill in the gaps with the suitable words
Precedent contracts legal issues case previous precedents courts common law parties
Case law
British law is based on the principle of (1)…………….., meaning that if a court has already ruled on a given legal issue and another case arises with the same legal issue, the holding in the previous case will be applied to the new (2)…………. The use of precedents helps to promote stability in the (3) ……, as all parties are given notice as to the current state of the law.
Precedents also have a role to play when new (4)…….. are presented to courts. (5)…… for both sides of a case look to cases that have been decided in the past that support their current arguments. When deciding new legal issues, sometimes courts expand (6)…………...
Through reliance upon precedent established in prior cases the (7)……… has resolved many legal issues and brought stability into many areas of the law, such as the law of….(8).