Question: The English legal system can no longer be considered on its own, but has to be understood within the Context of the European Union and its institutions.
What are the institutions referred to and what is their impact on the English legal system?
Answer: The European Community was set up by the EEC Treaty (known as the Treaty of Rome and later re-named the EC Treaty) in 1957, and the UK joined the Community in 1973.
On joining the Community, now called the European Union, the UK and its citizens became subject to EC law. This subjection to European law remains the case, even where the parties to any transaction are themselves both UK subjects. In other words, in areas where it is applicable, European law supersedes any existing UK law to the contrary.
Community law consists primarily of the EC Treaty and any amending legislation such as the Single European Act (SEA) to which the UK acceded in 1986, the Maastricht Treaty 1992 and the Treaty of Nice 2001. However the most recent reform was introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, signed by all the members in 2007 and subsequently ratified by them individually by the autumn of 2009. The nece...(short extract)
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- Subject: Law
- Course: European Union Law
- Level: Degree
- Year: 2nd/3rd
- Mark: 70%
- Words: 1982
- Date submitted: January 27, 2013
- Date written: Not available
- References: No
- Document type: Essay*
- Essay ID: 4441
