Business Law Assignment 2nd Sample

Task-1

P1- Explain different sources of law and laws that organisations must comply with.

1. Discus the meaning of this statement and the various sources of UK Laws

 

The concept of ‘parliamentary sovereignty came into existence during the reign of William and Mary who put a condition to provide parliament supremacy and special privilege to the royals in the parliament.

The ‘Parliament is sovereign’ - by the following statement, it is meant that the parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme power responsible for law-making or end any irrelevant law. Even the Supreme Court does not have the power to overrule the legislation passed by the parliament (i.e., these cannot be challenged in the courts). Also, no parliament can make laws that cannot be amended by the future parliament (Cotterrell, 2017). According to A. V. Dicey, the parliamentary sovereignty involves four major aspects:-

1. Parliament is supreme authority in the UK that can form any laws depending upon the subject matter.
2. No parliament has the power to bind the future parliament.
3. Nobody including the judicial bodies can question the validity of law.
4. All laws have equal authority and no one is above the other.

Different Sources of the UK laws

The sources of laws in UK can be categorized into two different sub-classes: Primary and Secondary.

Primary Sources

• Legislations: The UK constitution partly written and hence, amendments are made into it every year. The Laws passed in the parliament are termed as These laws are applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom.
• Precedents:In UK, precedent is that doctrine, whereby the previous decision of a court of same importance or higher stature can be taken as reference to make decisions in a similar current case.
• Customs Laws: These are the unofficial rules that are made by a particular society and are practiced customarily.Those who violate these laws are subjected to the punishment by the society.
• European Laws: These are the set of regulations and guidelines given in the treaty signed by the members of the European Union. These laws are considered above the laws of the member nation (Schmidt, 2013).

Secondary Sources

• Law Journals: These containthe mix of the case studies, articles, and case summaries that can help in understanding the legal issues thoroughly.
• Legal Encyclopaedias: These contains the comprehensive statement of the legislations of the whole of the UK and can serve as an excellent source of research.

P2- Explain the role of government in law-making and how statutory and common law is applied in the justice courts.

In the democracy as big as UK, nobody is above the law. Since the constitution of UK is partially codified or written, hundreds of laws are made every year and the parliament is the sole body responsible for making laws. The parliament consists of two important bodies, namely the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The former is the elected body of the parliament and every member is chosen by people of the UK for a serving period of five year. These members present and support a bill in the parliamentary sessions. The House of LordscomprisestheSupreme Court. After a bill is up voted in the House of Commons, the House of Lords examines it and give the appropriate suggestions. In the United Kingdom, the Royals are considered as the supreme power or the head of the state (Royal Assent). Once the suggested changes of the House of Lords are made into the bill, it is sent to Monarch to get the final approval. Once the bill gets the green signal from the Queen, it’s officially gazetted and become an act. Later on, the legal laws are made under that particular act.

Applying the Statute and Common Laws in the Justice Court

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The common laws are those laws that are formed within the court, either by the judges or tribunals, whereas the statutory laws are the formal laws created by the parliament of the UK. In the former case, the judges make the decisions based on some previous verdicts given in the similar type of cases, and are also called as ‘precedents’. Many a times, it has been noticed that the final judgment given by the court becomes a new law. The statutory law is the fundamental structure of the English legal system. These are important for the efficient regulation of the society and to maintain the law and order.Statutory law is superior to that of common law and can modify or overrule the latter (Common laws are a crucial instrument to understand and apply any statute law.

M1- Evaluate the effectiveness of the legal system in terms of recent reforms and developments.

The English legal system consists of variety of guidelines for institutions, principles, processes, governance, and administration of justice. Legal system is flexible and constantly changing. Legal reforms are necessary for improving the lives of the citizens. Changes in the Factory Act, Employment Law and Contract Law established some new measures by which the intervention of government in defining the welfare provision, health and safety of workers in working premises got improved (Donaldson and Walsh, 2015). The reform in the Education Act 1944, led to the reorganization of the whole education system of the UK.

Task 2

P3- Using specific examples illustrate how company, employment and contract law has a potential impact upon business

1. Health and Safety regulations

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 protects the rights of the each and every person indulged in a business activity. It puts many obligation on the employers like “Risk assessment” of the working premises to ensure the public safety. It affects businesses by putting an extra burden over the organisation in the era of ‘no win, no fee’! Meeting the Health & Safety criteria is uneconomical for the businesses as they have to provide special training sessions to their employee, get the certification of safety from the authority, etc. (Partington, 2016). Failing in complying with the regulations defined under HSWA-1974, can lead to serious consequences for the employer or organisation. These include fines or imprisonment or both or cancellation of the working license of the organisation.

 

2. Equal Opportunities regulations

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits the discrimination by the employer or service provider on the basis of age, disability, gender, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation. This act also obligates businesses to make some valid adjustments for disabled people so that they can also compete with the non-disabled ones. It also prevents people from any kind of harassment or victimisation by the service providers. In case of dereliction of any of the provision given in the Act, the suit can be brought into the civil court and the victim can seek compensation for the same. It is mandatory to bring the claims in the civil court within six years of the date of the act to which the claim relates (Manthorpe and Moriarty, 2014).

3. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

This is the latest EU parliamentary measure that governs the guidelines of handling the privacy and ensure the maximum level of protection on privacy of data. Since the data can travel across the national boundaries, GDPR gives the citizens of Europe a protection towards the data breach. Any company working in the EU is bound by its rules. GDPR protects the data by understanding that the processes of collecting and processing the data, thereby giving the ultimate control to the consumer. GDPR promotes pseudonymization, encryption, and anonymization (Mourby, et.al, 2018). There is no exemption in this act that means from micro to MNC, every organization has to comply with GDPR.

D1- Provide a coherent and critical evaluation of the legal system and law, with evidence drawn from a range of different relevant examples to support judgements

The UK covers a large portion of world’s population and to govern such a large number of people, one needs to have a strong and robust legal system. Many countries have composed their legal systems taking the English legal system as reference. The oddest thing about the UK is that its constitution is partly written and the legal system is adversarial unlike the USA where it is inquisitorial (Zane, 2012). It means that the judges are neutral and do not involve in searching evidence. In addition to this, unlike other united regions, such as UAE or USA, the UK follows a common law system. Instead of providing consistency based on arbitrary judgements personal views, the English legal system does that through the doctrine of precedent. It also elucidates and implements the legislation, and provides the guidance on law that helps to work in difficult situations.

M2- Differentiate and analyse the potential impacts of regulations, legislation and standards.

It is a well-known fact that there is a twisted relationship between the regulations, legislation, standards, etc., and growth of a business. On one hand regulations remove the market uncertainties and failure, thereby improvising the growth and on the other, they have a negative impact on business growth by inducing the undesirable cost and distortions. In the UK, imposing regulations in upstream market have great impact on the productivity of downstream market. In many UK-based studies, it has been found that a healthy employer-employee relationship was not developed, but regulations help them in cementing it. Employment and Contract law obligates the organisation to put those guidelines in the contract that protects the rights of both parties. Businesses mostly act reluctant to apply standards in the work premises because standards give lower innovation efficiency, whereas regulations usually cause the opposite effect. But, when there is high uncertainty in markets, regulations lead to lower efficiency and standards become quite effective (Blind, et.al., 2017). So, we cannot compare the two as end results depend upon the market environment.

References

• Blind, K., Petersen, S.S. and Riillo, C.A., 2017. The impact of standards and regulation on innovation in uncertain markets. Research Policy, 46(1), pp.249-264.
• Collins, P., 2017. The Inadequate Protection of Human Rights in Unfair Dismissal Law. Industrial Law Journal.
• Donaldson, T. and Walsh, J.P., 2015. Toward a theory of business. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, pp.181-207.
• Hart, H.L.A., Hart, H.L.A. and Green, L., 2012. The concept of law. Oxford University Press.
• Manthorpe, J. and Moriarty, J., 2014. Examining day centre provision for older people in the UK using the Equality Act 2010: findings of a scoping review. Health & social care in the community, 22(4), pp.352-360.
• Mourby, M., Mackey, E., Elliot, M., Gowans, H., Wallace, S.E., Bell, J., Smith, H., Aidinlis, S. and Kaye, J., 2018. Are ‘pseudonymised’data always personal data? Implications of the GDPR for administrative data research in the UK. Computer Law & Security Review, 34(2), pp.222-233.
• Schmidt, V.A., 2013. Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union revisited: Input, output and ‘throughput’. Political Studies, 61(1), pp.2-22.