German Law system

Public Law * Public law rules the relations between a citizen or private person and an official entity or between two official entities, e.g. a law which determines taxes * Public law was formerly based on the so-called "superiority inferiority relationship", means that a public authority may define what is to be done, without the approval of the citizen. * E.g., if the authority orders a citizen to pay taxes, the citizen has to pay, even without an agreement. * In return, the authority has to abide by the law and may only order, if empowered by a law. * The newer theory to determine, whether a regulation is public or civil law, is the modified theory of subjects: if at least one of the subjects is part of the state or is legally empowered to act on behalf of any part of the state.

Constitutional law * The constitution is called the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) because the drafters saw this legal part as a provisional document, to be replaced by the constitution of a future united Germany. * In reaction to National Socialism, the basic law shows mistrust towards its own people and its own government and was created as a reaction to the problems of the Weimar Constitution. * The constitutional law (Verfassungsrecht) deals mostly with Germany’s constitution and the rights and duties of the various institutions. * A major part are the Civil rights which are first in the basic law (Grundgesetz) and from which everything else derives. * As usual in western democracies, the three powers are separated: the executive is taken care of by the government, the judiciary by the courts and judges, and the legislative is managed by the federal and state parliaments. The most important principles, apart from that, are Democracy, Federalism and the Rule of law principle, meaning that the whole of the state must be based on laws. * The highest authority in constitutional law, is the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), it is no Supreme Court. * Its only purpose is the protection of the constitution, by control of the actions of government, judicative and legislative * European law has a certain influence as the basic law is no longer the only source of law, it is joined by the contracts and laws of the European Union. * Each german state ('‘Land’') has its own constitution and, necessarily, its own constitutional law and court.

Administrative law * The administrative law is the law of the Executive. * It covers most kinds of legal relations between the state and the citizens, but also between different bodies and/or levels of government with the exception of constitutional law and legal relations, when the state closes contracts * The highest administrative court for most matters is the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court). * There are federal courts with special jurisdiction in the fields of social security law (and tax law .

Administrative civil law * The executive may act on grounds of the "Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch"( “civil code”) * if a governmental office acts on ground of the '‘civil law’' , it is bound to the basic law to prevent unequal treatment of citizens and businesses.
Criminal law * Criminal law is a matter of Federal law in Germany. * Main source of law here is the Strafgesetzbuch (criminal code) * No one youger than14 years is held responsible for crimes at court, * For people under the age of 18 and in case of missing maturity under the age of 21 there are special courts and some adjustments to the criminal law as well. * In court, a prosecutor enforces the prosecution, and the defendant can choose a lawyer * The Judgement is passed out by a judge or in higher courts a team of judges, of which in several cases there are two ordinary citizens * Judgements are fines up to life imprisonment, which is usually open to appeal after 15 or more years because of constitutional reasons. * The death penalty is forbidden by the constitution. * Extremely dangerous persons can be turned over to psychiatric treatment or have to stay in prison as long as necessary (which can mean for the rest of their lives) in addition to their punishment.

Private Law * Private law rules the relations between two private legal entities (for example, a buyer and a seller) or two entities that act on the same level as private persons. * In contrast, whenever a state agency exercises official power, private law is not to be applied.

Civil law * Civil law determines the relationships among persons and/or legal entities, The most important reference is the Civil Law Book, consisting of 5 major parts: the common/general part, the law of obligations, property law, family law and law of succession. * The most important principle of the civil law book is self-government, which states that all citizens have the right to rule their own affairs without interference from the state, e.g. the creation of contracts with partners and with the contents they like. * The most important creation of the civil law book is the Principle of Abstraction * According to this principle, contracts only create an obligation, but there are no actual changes to the legal correlation concerning the object of the contract. * Daily life example:For instance, if someone buys a newspaper at a newsstand without saying one single word to the seller, all of the three following contracts are fulfilled: The parties agree to buy the product at a certain price and to create the obligation of the seller to transfer the good and to provide property on it, the second contract consist of the transfer and the coincident declarations of intent to provide property by doing so, the third contract consists of the transfer of the money and the coincident declarations of intent to provide property
English Law system * There are three distinct legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. * Each has its own legal system * English law, which applies in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland law, which applies in Northern Ireland, are based on common-law principles. * Scots law, which applies in Scotland, is a pluralistic system based on civil-law principles, with common law elements dating back to the High Middle Ages. * While England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland diverge in the more detailed rules of common law and equity, there are substantive fields of law which apply across the United Kingdom. * The four principal sources of UK law are legislation, common law, European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights. There is no single series of documents that contains the whole of the law of the UK.

English Law

* English law is renowned as being the mother of the common law and is based on it * The law is developed by judges in court, applying laws, precedent and common sense to the facts before them, to give explanatory judgements of the relevant legal principles, which are reported and binding in future similar cases * The courts of England and Wales are controlled by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of justice (for civil cases) and the Crown Court (for criminal cases). * The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land for both criminal and civil appeal cases in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and any decision it makes is binding on every other court in the same jurisdiction * On appeal, a court may overrule the decisions of its inferior courts, such as county courts (civil) and magistrates' courts (criminal). * The High Court may also quash on judicial review both administrative decisions of the Government and delegated legislation. * The ultimate body of appeal for all criminal and civil cases in England and Wales (and Northern Ireland, and for all civil cases in Scots law) is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which took over this function from "The House of Lords" in October 2009. * After the Acts of Union, in 1707 English law became one of two legal systems in different parts of the same, united, kingdom and has been influenced by Scots law

Northern Ireland law * The law of Northern Ireland is a common law system. * It is administered by the courts of Northern Ireland, with ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in both civil and criminal matters. * The law of Northern Ireland is closely similar to English law, the rules of common law having been imported into the Kingdom of Ireland under English rule. * However there are still important differences. * The sources of the law of Northern Ireland are Irish common law, and statute law. * The courts of Northern Ireland are headed by the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland, consisting of the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, the Northern Ireland High Court of Justice and the Northern Ireland Crown Court. * Below that are county courts and magistrates' courts.

Scots law * Scots law is a unique legal system with an ancient basis in Roman law * Thus Scotland has a 'mixed', legal system * Since the Acts of Union, in 1707, it has shared a legislature with the rest of the United Kingdom. * Scotland and England & Wales each retained fundamentally different legal systems, but the Union brought English influence on Scots law and inverse. * In recent years Scots law has also been affected by European law and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament * The chief courts are the Court of Session, for civil cases and the High Court of Justiciary, for criminal cases * The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom serves as the highest court of appeal for civil cases under Scots law * The Scots legal system is unique in having three possible verdicts for a criminal trial: "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven". Both "not guilty" and "not proven" result in an acquittal with no possibility of retrial

UK Legislatures
United Kingdom Parliament * The Parliament of the United Kingdom is bicameral, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. * The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber. * The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament"), in London. * By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or House of Lords.

Northern Ireland Assembly * The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. * It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to appoint the Northern Ireland Executive. It sits at Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast. * The Assembly is a unicameral, democratically elected body comprising 108 members who are known as Members of the Legislative Assembly, or MLAs. * Members are elected under the single transferable vote form of proportional representation.

Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is located in the Holyrood area of the capital Edinburgh. * It is a democratically elected body of 129 members who are known as Members of the Scottish Parliament or MSPs. * when the Kingdom of Scotland merged with the Kingdom of England under the Acts of Union 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain the Parliament of Scotland merged with Parliament of England, to form the Parliament of Great Britain, which sat at Westminster in London.

National Assembly for Wales * Since 2012, the National Assembly for Wales has been invested with limited legislative powers, It is situated in Cardiff. * The National Assembly, first elected in 1999, is a democratically elected body of 60 members who are known as Assembly Members that are elected for four year terms