LSME 403
Business Law
Assignment 1
Essay
Student Name:
Student ID:
Different Methods of Dispute Resolution in England and Wales
This essay is regarding the application of the statute and common laws and the working of different legal systems like Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADRs), Civil and Criminal Courts, Tribunals, etc., working in the jurisdiction of England and Wales. The UK’s legal instruments and their applications are different than many countries, as the constitution of the UK is uncodified, so the law is working through various sources, and the application of these sources is necessary to understand. The statute law is one of the sources of law, this law is created by the parliament, and it is also called the act of parliament. The parliament has the supreme power in the country and there are no restrictions on the law-making power of the parliament, the judiciary’s job is to interpret the laws created by the parliament. The judiciary cannot disapprove or eliminate any statute, they just have to provide the solution as provided by the statute in their judgments.
The country has seen the implication of common law, which is also called the judge-made law, these laws are created by the action of precedent, which is specified in the judgment laid down by the judges and which were followed due to the authority judgment. The common law is applied by the courts due to the action of binding judgments, if the judgment is passed by the higher court then it is binding on the lower court, that’s how the system of precedent works. The case can be reversed or overruled by the action of the higher court. The statute law is superior to the common law and where the statute provides a law, common law cannot be used there, this law only works in situations where no statute prescribes the conduct of the law (Slapper and Kelly, 2003). For example, the contract law is governed by the common laws, as there is no statute law for its application, except the sales of goods act, or, the Equality Act is a statute law that provides the equality to be kept and no discriminative conduct by anyone.
There are different forms of dispute resolutions like ADRs, Courts, and tribunals. The Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a modern form of the dispute resolution system, where the disputes are resolved outside the courts, the courts are also suggesting, nowadays, the courts also prefer to suggest the parties try ADRs before filing a suit in court. These resolutions are preferred by the courts and parties because they save money, time, and efforts of the parties if compared with the legislation, it takes time, money, to resolve the matter. The system of adding mandatory ADR before filing a suit in court has also emerged as a trend in contract law. Various forms of ADRs can be used to resolve a matter in the UK, the most common form of ADR is Mediation, which is a voluntary process, where the parties of the dispute sit together to discuss their dispute and come to a solution by the way of negotiation.
The adjudication is a process that is compulsory for the parties having a dispute in the construction industry, the act of Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 specifies the procedure of adjudication. The decision of an adjudicator is binding on the parties of the dispute, except when it is reversed by the courts or through arbitration. Then, there is the expert determination, where an independent technical expert is appointed by the parties, the clause to appoint this expert is specified in the contract, and whether the decision of this expert is binding or not, is also specified. This expert does the valuation and technical aspects of the situation and where the contract specified that the decision is binding then it cannot be reversed and will be binding on the parties.
The system of civil and criminal courts in the country is different, but some courts listen to both matters, the application is different. The civil courts deal with the matters of conflicts that arise between individuals and the case begins in the Magistrates Courts, but there is a chance that these cases will be transferred to the County Courts. The appellate authority of the County Court is the High Court, which deals with both civil and criminal cases. Then, if the matter is appealed to the Courts of Appeals, which also deals with the cases that came from the High Court, they will be given the final decision by the court. Then, there are criminal cases, the small offenses are dealt with by the magistrate court, and the indictive offenses are dealt with by the Crown Court, these offenses are serious forms of offenses like murder and rape (Howard, 2021). The appeals from the magistrate courts are sent to the crown court, if the decision is provided by the Crown Court, then the appeal will lie to the High Court, from where the appeal can be sent to the Courts of Appeals or even the Supreme Court.
The tribunals are created to deal with the specialized form of legal aspects, in 2008, all the tribunals were divided into two forms of tribunals, the First-tier tribunal, and the upper tribunal. The Upper tribunal deals with the appeal matters of the First-tier Tribunal. The decisions of the Upper Tribunal can be appealed by the Courts of Appeals if the grounds of the appeal are based on the point of law, and exceptionally these appeals can be made to the Supreme Court. For example, the matters regarding the volition of any provision of the Equality Act or the Employment Rights Act can be referred to the employment tribunal (Judiciary, 2022). All these are important aspects of the legal system, the application of the different sources of laws are dependent on the law, it is the law that specifies that the matter will fall under the civil or criminal courts, tribunals, or different forms of remedies provided by the Alternate Dispute Resolution.
Reference
Howard, H., 2021. Effective Participation of Mentally Vulnerable Defendants in the Magistrates’ Courts in England and Wales—The ‘Front Line’ from a Legal Perspective. The Journal of Criminal Law, 85(1), pp.3-16.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/0022018320957110.
Judiciary. 2022. Introduction to tribunals. [online] judiciary.uk. Available at: https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/who-are-the-judiciary/judicial-roles/tribunals/tribunals/. [Accessed on: 30 March 2022]
Kalyan, B. H. S., & Prakash, A. A., 2019. Case Studies on Dispute Resolutions in Construction Projects for Framing an Expert Solution. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/B-Hemanth-Sai-Kalyan/publication/340918270_Case_Studies_On_Dispute_Resolution_In_Construction_Projects_For_Framing_An_Expert_Solution/Links/604f29ab299bf13c4f08e907/Case-Studies-On-Dispute-Resolution-In-Construction-Projects-For-Framing-An-Expert-Solution.pdf.
Slapper, G. and Kelly, D., 2003. The English legal system. Routledge-Cavendish. https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9780415639989/downloads/2009spring.pdf
