1: Law and legal systems

Question 1

What do we mean when we speak about ‘the law’?

Answer 1

The body of general rules which governs and controls the behaviour of people in the country or state in which we live.

Question 2

What are common law rules?

Used in the ‘interpretation of statutes’

Answer 2

Rules which the courts themselves have developed to assist with interpretation. They include:

1. Literal rules
2. Golden rules
3. Mischief rules
4. Presumptions

Question 3

Literal rule case example: Whitely v. Chappel (1869)

words and phrases construed by the courts in their ordinary sense

Answer 3

• the defendant had voted in the name of a person who had died.
• accused of impersonating ‘any person entitled to vote’ at an election, which is an offence under electoral law.
• Found not guilty because a dead person is not entitled to vote and has not legal rights.

Question 4

Mischief rule case example: Smith v. Hughes (1960)

meaning of the words in the Act in the light of the abuse or ‘mischief’ which the Act was intended to correct.

Answer 4

• Street Offences Act 1959 - prostitute cannot solicit men ‘in a street or public place’
• women taps on a balcony and hissed at men in order to attract their attention (guilty/not guilty?), women not in the street, men were.
• Found guilty because of the ‘mischief’ the act was aimed at (preventing the molestation and solicitation of people in the street).

Question 5

VERY IMPORTANT NEGLIGENCE CASE:

Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932) case.

Answer 5

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?

• Duty of care to not harm our ‘neighbour’
• ‘Neighbour’: any person whom we should reasonably foresee as likely to be affected by our acts or omissions.

Question 6

Law report case example: Carlill v. Smoke Ball Co. (1893) 1 QB 256.

Answer 6

• 1st volume of the Queen’s Bench division
• case begins at page 256
• claimants name is first, defendants second.
• if the case goes to appeal, the parties are known as the appellant and the respondent (order of names unchanged).

Question 7

Law report case example: Adam v. Ward (1917) AC 309.

Answer 7

• decisions of the House of Lords are published in the Appeal Cases volume
• AC 309 - appeal was heard by House of Lords and can be found in the 1917 volume, the report of the case starting at page 309.

Question 8

What is a precedent?

Answer 8

a decision in a previous legal case where the facts were similar to the case before the court.