United Kingdom

• Acts of Parliament, the highest source: Parliament can make or change any law
• Case law (precedent) from the courts, very important in England and Wales and Northern Ireland
• The Human Rights Act 1998, which brings most rights from the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law
• In Scotland, institutional writers (old authoritative legal textbooks) and Roman-influenced principles also count

• The UK Supreme Court is the final court of appeal for civil cases across the UK and for criminal cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• England and Wales: Court of Appeal, then the High Court, then county courts, the Crown Court and magistrates' courts
• Scotland has its own courts: the Court of Session (civil) and the High Court of Justiciary (criminal), and Scotland's criminal appeals end there

The profession is split. Solicitors (who deal with clients and most paperwork) and barristers (specialist court advocates) train separately. In England and Wales solicitors qualify through the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own routes.

• There is no single written constitution document. The constitution is made of statutes, court decisions and conventions.
• Parliament is sovereign: unlike in the United States, courts cannot strike down an Act of Parliament.
• Equity (a body of rules that grew in the old Court of Chancery) is a separate branch of law, important for trusts and remedies.
• A lawyer qualified in England and Wales is not automatically qualified in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Ireland, United States, India, Australia, Canada

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists United Kingdom as: Common law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica.

• Courts and Tribunals Judiciary: court structure
• The UK Supreme Court: about the Court
• Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.