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DISCUSSION The United Kingdom is divided into States each with a separate legal system and Jurisdiction . For the purposes of Public International Law , a "state" is the Nation given '' De Jure '' recognition so that it may, ''inter alia'', enter into a Treaty with another nation. But, for the purposes of Conflict Of Laws , Beale defines a "state" as follows (at § 2.1/2.5): :The civilized portion of the earth is divided up into certain units of territory in each of which a particular law proper to that territory alone prevails, and that territory is for legal purposes a unit. :§ 2.2. What Determines the State. — It has been seen that the existence of separate legal units within the dominions of a single sovereign is a fact, the result of historical accidents. Beale offers this example of historical accidents at § 2.2: :"...when Hawaii was annexed to the United States it remained a separate legal unit; but when Wales was conquered by England it became a part of the legal unit, England." Some jurisdictions such as Australia use the term "law unit" and some authors use the word "country", believing that these words are less confusing than the use of the word "state". The majority view is that "state" is the best term. Hence, for Conflict purposes, England and Wales constitute a single state. This is important for a number of reasons, one of the more significant being the distinction between Nationality and Domicile . Thus, an individual would have a British nationality and a domicile in one of the constituent states, the latter law defining all aspects of a person's Status and Capacity . Dicey and Morris (p26) list the separate states in the British Islands . "England, Scotland , Northern Ireland , the Isle Of Man , Jersey , Guernsey , Alderney , and Sark . . . is a separate country in the sense of the conflict of laws, though not one of them is a State known to public international law." But this may be varied by statute. The United Kingdom is one state for the purposes of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. Great Britain is a single state for the purposes of the Companies Act 1985. STATUTORY FRAMEWORK The Interpretation Act 1978, Schedule 1 distinctively identifies the following: "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:
"Great Britain" means England and Scotland including its adjacent territorial waters and the islands of Orkney and Shetland , the Hebrides , and Rockall (by virtue of the Island of Rockall Act 1972). The "United Kingdom" means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and their adjacent territorial waters. It does not include the Isle of Man; nor the Channel Islands , whose independent status was discussed in ''Rover International Ltd. v Canon Film Sales Ltd.'' (1987) 1 WLR 1597 and ''Chloride Industrial Batteris Ltd. v F. & W. Freight Ltd.'' (1989) 1 WLR 823. The "British Islands" means the "United Kingdom", the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. COMMON LAW As from 1189, the date from which lawyers can remember what the law has been and is ( Time Immemorial ), English law has been described as a Common Law rather than a Civil Law system (i.e. there has been no major Codification of the law, and Judicial Precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive). In the early centuries, the justices and Judge s were responsible for adapting the Writ system to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law, e.g. the Law Merchant began in the Pie-Powder Courts (a corruption of the French "pieds-poudrés" or "dusty feet", meaning ad hoc marketplace courts). As Parliament developed in strength, and subject to the doctrine of Separation Of Powers , Legislation gradually overtook judicial law making so that, today, judges are only able to innovate in certain very narrowly defined areas. Precedent One of the major problems in the early centuries was to produce a system that was certain in its operation and predictable in its outcomes. Too many judges were either partial or incompetent, acquiring their positions only by virtue of their Rank in Society . Thus, a standardised procedure slowly emerged, based on a system termed Stare Decisis . Thus, the Ratio Decidendi of each case will bind future cases on the same generic set of facts both horizontally and vertically. The highest appellate court in the U.K. is the House Of Lords (the judicial members of which are termed ''Law Lords'' or, specifically if not commonly Lords of Appeal in Ordinary) and its decisions are binding on every other court in the hierarchy which are obliged to apply its rulings as the law of the land. The Court Of Appeal binds the lower courts, and so on. Since joining what is now termed the European Union , European Union Law has Direct Effect in the UK, and the decisions of the European Court Of Justice bind the UK courts. Overseas influences The influences are two-way.
STATUTE English law has significant antiquity. The oldest law currently in force is the Distress Act 1267, part of the Statute Of Marlborough (52 Hen. 3). Three sections of Magna Carta , originally signed in 1215 and a landmark in the development of English law, are still extant, but they date to the reissuing of the law in 1297 . SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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