There are two legal systems in Britain; one is shared by England and Wales; one is unique to Scotland. They are recognisable, not only by their differing traditions, but in substance - in their structures and procedures. Nevertheless, the development of each system has informed and contributed to the development of the other.

In England and Wales the Norman Conquest did not sweep away Anglo-Saxon traditions, but began the rationalisation of the customary laws of the land. This process laid the foundations of the legal system of England and Wales by encouraging those principles of law that were common to all the realm - the Common Law. It is this approach of assimilating and rationalising diverse legal principles that perhaps typifies the legal system of England and Wales.

In Scotland, where historically there were close trading and academic links with much of Europe, civil law formed the basis of the legal system. The Treaty of Union, which joined the English and Scottish Parliaments in 1707, provided for the retention of a separate system of private and local law, thereby offering an interesting example of a legal system combining both civil and common law principles.

The same commercial and fiscal laws have tended to apply throughout England, Scotland and Wales. This might be seen as an example of an early economic and political community, with shared, but independent, legal systems. Moreover, the same principles of commercial law are now widely used as the basis of international trade. Furthermore, the existence of two separate legal traditions and systems within one political union has meant that innovations in each jurisdiction have contributed to the jurisprudential development of the other. Both systems, in turn, have had a profound influence on many other legal systems, with appeal from several countries still lying with the Juridical Committee of the Privy Council. Today, both English legal systems still pride themselves in responding to new situations and challenges, as is evidenced by new approaches and the applications of new technology in courts, chambers and offices alike.

The Courts of England and Wales

The structures and procedures of the courts of England and Wales reflect a concern to effect efficient and expeditious justice, as indeed do those of Scotland. The balance between efficiency and justice is embodied by the fact that, although most cases are heard locally by lay magistrates, the accused has the right to opt for trial by his peers - by jury. Prosecutions are brought by an independent barrister for the Crown Prosecution Service so that the judge has no role in directly eliciting evidence as to guilt or innocence; it is for the jury to decide whether guilt has been proved beyond reasonable doubt on the basis only of the evidence presented by the Crown. Equally, in both jurisdiction, civil courts, which deal with disputes other than criminal, are complimented by Tribunals for specific areas of law, such as social security and employment, as well as informal court procedures dealing with small claims.

Criminal Courts

The Magistrates Court is the lowest tier of criminal court in England and Wales, dealing with about ninety-eight per cent of all criminal cases. The 450 courts are funded jointly by local and central government. Almost all cases are tied by Justices of the Peace (JPs), numbering some 30,000. They are appointed by the Lord Chancellor for the Crown, on the recommendation of local committees. Potential JPs are nominated on the basis of their judgement and character and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. JPs are not professionally qualified, nor are they paid, but they are assisted by professional clerks, who are fully qualified lawyers. However, some cases in the Magistrates Courts are tried by professionally qualified full-time stipendiary magistrates.

The Crown Court, tries more serious criminal cases, as well as hearing appeals from the Magistrates Courts. It sits in over ninety permanent centres throughout England and Wales, each centre being designated as first, second or third tier, reflecting the seriousness of the offences tried. Trial of cases is by a jury of twelve people selected at random from the electoral register. They are directed on matters of law by a judge, who may be any one of the eighty-four High Court Judges, 478 Circuit Judges, 787 Recorders and 454 Assistant Recorders (the latter two being part-time appointments).

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) sits in London at the Royal Courts of Justice. It deals with appeals from the Crown Court and is presided over by the Lord Chief Justice who is the most senior judge in England and Wales. The Court of Appeal is normally constituted by any three of the Lord Justice of Appeal and the Lord Chief Justice. The twenty-five Lord Justices of Appeal are assisted by High Court judges when it is required.

Civil Courts

The 250 County Courts of England and Wales, deal with cases of lesser value, importance and complexity. Indeed, claims of under £1,000 can be dealt with by the increasingly popular small claims procedure, which provides for informal arbitration. Parties in such proceedings are encouraged to handle small claims by themselves, rather than being formally represented by an advocate. In the County Court formal cases are heard before District Judges, who hear uncontested and smaller value claims; higher value claims being dealt with by Circuit Judges. Each court is assigned at least one District and one Circuit Judge.

The High Court sits at the Royal Courts of Justice and at County Courts around the country. It deals principally with more substantial and complex civil cases. Land, property and inheritance matters are dealt with by its Chancery Division, along with patent issues and industrial disputes. The Queen's Bench Division deals with common law business such as tort and contractual disputes. There is also a Family Division. Appeal is to the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), which also hears appeals from the County Courts and from tribunals. The Court of Appeal (Civil Division), which is housed in the Royal Courts of Justice, is constituted from two or three Lord Justices of Appeal, and may include the Master of the Rolls. There may be further appeal to the House of Lords.

Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is made up of all 129 MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament). Like the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament passes laws. It also scrutinises the work and policies of the Scottish Executive. The Scottish Executive is the government in Scotland for all devolved matters. At Devolution, the powers and duties exercised by UK Ministers in Scotland, relating to devolved matters, were transferred to the Scottish Ministers. Most of the responsibilities previously held by the Scottish Office have become part of the remit of the Scottish Executive.

The Scottish Executive is formed from the party or parties holding a majority of seats in the Parliament. The members of the Executive are collectively referred to as 'the Scottish Ministers'. All Ministers are MSPs. This means that they are part of two separate organisations: the Scottish Executive (Ministers) and the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).

The voting system used by the Scottish Parliament is known as the Additional Member System (AMS). AMS is a type of proportional representation. This means that the share of seats each party receives reflects its level of support among voters. At a Scottish Parliament election each voter has 2 votes. With the first vote, voters choose between candidates standing in their constituency. The candidate winning the largest number of votes will gain the seat. There are a total of 73 constituency MSPs. The second vote is for a political party, or for a candidate standing as an individual, within a larger electoral area called a Scottish Parliament Region. There are 8 Scottish Parliament Regions. Each region has 7 additional seats in the Parliament. Within each region, parties are allocated additional seats dependent upon the number of constituency seats it won. The members chosen to fill these 56 additional seats are known as 'regional members'.

Each voter will have one constituency MSP and 7 regional MSPs. All MSPs have equal status in the Parliament.

Welsh Assembly

In July 1997, the Government published its White Paper, A Voice for Wales, which outlined its proposals for devolution in Wales. These proposals were endorsed in the referendum of 18 September 1997. Subsequently, Parliament passed the Government of Wales Act 1998, which established the National Assembly for Wales, and the National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order 1999, which enabled the transfer of the devolved powers and responsibilities from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Assembly.

The National Assembly will decide on its priorities and allocate the funds made available to Wales from the Treasury. The Assembly develops and implements policies, which reflect the particular needs of the people of Wales.  Decisions about local issues are made by politicians who are accountable, through the ballot box, to voters in Wales. Wales remains part of the UK and the Secretary of State for Wales and Members of Parliament from Welsh constituencies continue to have seats in Westminster.  Laws passed by Parliament in Westminster still apply to Wales.

The elections for the first National Assembly were held on 6 May 1999. Future elections will be held every four years. The Assembly has sixty elected members and each constituent has two votes. The first vote is used to elect a local or constituency member in the same way as MPs are elected to the House of Commons. Forty Assembly members are elected on this ‘first past the post’ basis, one from each constituency in Wales. The second vote is used to elect twenty additional members, on a regional basis, to ensure that the overall number of seats for each political party reflects the share of the vote they receive. This is known as the Additional Member System (AMS), a form of proportional representation.  There are five electoral regions, based on the European Parliamentary Constituencies created in 1994, and each region returns four members to the Assembly.

The historic first plenary meeting of the Assembly took place at 11 am on Wednesday 12 May 1999, when members elected the first Presiding Officer, Deputy Presiding Officer and First Minister of the Assembly. Following the referendum of 18 September 1997, the National Assembly for Wales was established by the Government of Wales Act 1998 to take on the powers and responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Wales.

The Northern Ireland Parliament

The Parliament of Northern Ireland was established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, a piece of legislation that was intended to establish a partition of Ireland and create two devolved Parliaments within the United Kingdom. However the institutions of the Parliament of Southern Ireland were stillborn: none of the seats in the Southern Ireland House of Commons were contested and Sinn Féin won all the territorial constituencies. Eventually the provisions of the Act were superseded by the establishment of the Irish Free State, and this also rendered the proposed Council of Ireland ineffective. The Parliament of Northern Ireland was bicameral: alongside the directly elected House of Commons was the Senate of twenty-six members. Twenty-four Senators were elected by the House of Commons using the single transferable vote; the other two seats were held ex officio by the the Lord Mayors of Belfast and Londonderry. Because the Senate had the same party balance as the House of Commons and was dependent on it for election, it had virtually no impact. After initially meeting in Belfast City Hall, the Parliament built for itself a new headquarters building at Stormont on the eastern outskirts of Belfast. Completed in 1932 to a design by Sir Arnold Thornley, Parliament Buildings are in the Greek classical style with the exterior faced in Portland stone. Also on the Parliamentary estate are Stormont Castle, which served as the headquarters of the Cabinet, and Stormont House which was the residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Stormont was given power to legislate over almost all aspects of Northern Ireland life, with only a few matters excluded from its remit: succession to the Crown, making of peace or war, armed forces, honours, naturalization, some central taxes and postal services were the most important (for a full list see s. 4 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920). The Parliament did not try to infringe the terms of the Government of Ireland Act; on only one occasion did the United Kingdom government advise the King to with-hold Royal Assent. This was the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) which abolished proportional representation in local government elections; the issue was referred to London and Royal Assent was eventually given. The output of legislation was very respectable for a devolved Parliament, though some of the Acts were adaptations of recently passed United Kingdom Acts. Stormont was an innovator in much of its legislation. Though section 16 of the Schedule to the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 forbade the Parliament to make any law which directly or indirectly discriminated against a religion, this provision was very easily flouted.

In most of its activities the House of Commons deliberately used the same procedure as the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster. Each Parliament opened with a King’s (or Queen’s) Speech, though after the first King’s Speech in 1921, it was delivered by the Governor of Northern Ireland. The Governor was the Crown’s representative who formally summoned and prorogued Parliament. When the Parliament emulated Westminster, it also emulated some of the more bizarre traditions such as giving a First Reading to the Outlawries Bill immediately after the speech from the throne - a token gesture of defiance of Royal authority. The same sessional orders were then agreed relating to Members returned for two constituencies.

As at Westminster, Members referred to each other in debate as “the honourable Member for the (X) division”. Bills, introduced either in the Senate or the House of Commons, had to pass through First Reading, Second Reading, Committee Stage, and Third Reading in both Houses to become law. With a very strict divorce law, the Parliament was often asked to deal with Private Bills promoted by divorcing couples. Because of the much smaller size of the House, only one Member was required to act as a Teller for each side during a division and they were counted among those voting in the division. The Parliament established virtually the same Parliamentary and Committee structure as Westminster - whether or not it was needed in a House of only 52 members.

The House normally sat on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays each week. However, when business was light (which it often was), Members could be given a day off. The House met at 3’o’clock each day. Standing Orders required the interruption of business at half past 6’o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 9’o’clock on Wednesdays. The sitting began with oral questions, which rarely filled up the time allotted. On Tuesdays the period from 4’o’clock was allotted to Private Members - either for a debate, or a formal motion, or for a Private Members’ Bill. In practice the whole of the business each day rarely lasted very long. The whole of the 51 years of the House of Commons fit into only 84 volumes of ‘Hansard’, and fewer than 84 books, because the printers sometimes bound more than one volume together.

The reason Stormont emulated Westminster was not so much that its Members had decided to use a set-up they were knowledgeable about and experienced with (though some of the initial Members in 1921 were Westminster MPs), nor was it a declaration of allegiance with the United Kingdom. The central reason was that the Westminster system gives almost unlimited power to the party that has a majority. Unfortunately the counterbalance operating at Westminster (that today’s Government may very easily become tomorrow’s opposition) did not apply at Stormont: the political reality was that Northern Ireland was established to have a Unionist majority. For this reason the Nationalist party did not even take their seats during the first Parliament (1921-25) and did not accept the role of Opposition until 2nd February 1965 - see Official Report (Northern Ireland House of Commons), vol. 59 col. 128. Nationalist refusal to co-operate with Stormont did not prompt the Unionists to make concessions - in fact it led to the opposite. As at Westminster, Stormont had a Public Accounts Committee which was intended to be Chaired by a senior opposition member. The Nationalist Party as largest opposition party refused to nominate anyone. The Northern Ireland Labour Party offered to take the job but Unionists insisted on nominating one of their own backbenchers instead. The Government of Ireland Act prescribed that elections to the House of Commons be by the single transferable vote, though the Parliament was given power to alter the electoral system from three years after its first meeting. The PR system was the subject of criticism from grassroots Unionists but because the three year period ended during the Labour government of 1924, the government decided not to provoke the known nationalist sympathies of many Labour backbenchers and held the second election on the same basis. The loss of eight Unionist seats in that election caused great acrimony and in 1929 the system was changed to first past the post for all territorial constituencies.

These constituencies were drawn up not by an impartial boundary commission but by the Unionist government. Accusations of gerrymandering were inevitable. The clearest example is County Fermanagh where two Unionists and one Nationalist represented a county with a Nationalist majority. It has been claimed that in Belfast the boundary draftsman miscalculated in attempting to create a fourth Nationalist seat. Because Northern Ireland is mostly rural, population movements were so small that these boundaries were used almost everywhere until the Parliament was dissolved in 1972; in 1968 the government abolished the four-member Queen’s University constituency and created four new constituencies in the outskirts of Belfast. This change helped the Unionists as they held only two of the Queen’s University seats but won all four of the newly created seats.

When the Government of Ireland Act 1920 received Royal Assent, it repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1914 under which the whole of Ireland would have elected a devolved Parliament. The Unionist MPs of the day did not welcome the Act (they abstained in the House of Commons vote), but regarded it as much better than the alternative. However, the Act envisioned eventual Irish unity, and so Unionism felt it had at all times to make sure it had a majority in the Northern Ireland Parliament to retain the Union (a situation made explicit in the Ireland Act 1949). Unionist rhetoric often insisted that the existence of the Parliament made partition of Ireland permanent (‘Northern Ireland without a Parliament of her own would be a standing temptation to certain British politicians to make another bid for a final settlement with the Irish Republic’ said the Ulster Unionist Council Report in 1936), but at every election, partition had suddenly no longer to be permanent. Otherwise the unionist population could safely vote for Independent Unionist or Labour representatives. This deprived unionist voters of any true choice of government (nationalist voters had effectively been deprived by the very existence of the Parliament).