1.1 Sources of law in the UK
In this introductory course you will consider some important aspects of the law, but social care professionals will learn more detailed information when they undertake training of qualifications for their jobs. This can be an area of knowledge and skills that is often associated with very complex work, but the law informs how social care and social work services can support and protect people.
There are a number of sources of law in the United Kingdom (UK):
- Common law: Over the centuries, the judges hearing cases have developed a body of legal principles and decisions known as ‘common law’, and this body of law is still important today. The Scottish legal system has a different history and is a mixture of the common law and the European civil law tradition.
- Statute law: This is the result of the law-making activities of the four legislatures of the four nations of the UK. Judges can be called on to interpret the meaning and scope of a statute in relation to a particular dispute or disagreement, giving rise to further case law.
- Case law: This can be very important in determining the current legal situation. For example, the meaning of ‘significant harm’ in different legislation across the UK is not defined in precise detail and is left to interpretation. When having to decide whether or not to seek a care or supervision or protection order for a child, social workers need to be able to provide evidence to the court, or hearing, that the child is in danger of suffering significant harm if the order is not made. The court then must determine whether the evidence of harm that is presented does in their view amount to ‘significant harm’.
- While judges have a critical role in interpreting statutes and developing case law, this does not mean that they are free to do as they wish when it comes to interpreting them. The doctrine of precedent limits and shapes the decisions that judges can make. ‘Precedent’ means that the decisions of higher courts are binding on lower courts, and, in the UK, the Supreme Court is the highest court. The doctrine of judicial precedent means that judges must follow the decisions in previously decided cases where the facts are similar. In practice, this means that inferior courts apply the legal principles set down by superior courts in cases that they decided earlier. This provides a degree of consistency and predictability in the law. Only the Supreme Court is not bound by its previous decisions.
In the UK, it has been the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, which makes law (statute). In recent decades, however, the power to make law in some areas has been devolved from the UK Parliament to new law-making bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with some law-making powers now resting with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Nations have developed clear and distinct approaches to care and this remains an evolving area of law and policy across the UK.