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What are the Different Primary and Secondary Sources of Law UK

Research?

Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,

Technical Operations, Phdassistance

info@phdassistance.com

In Brief

This article covers the different types of

Primary and Secondary sources based on

UK laws and statutory. Also, this article

provides useful Information on how and

where to find these sources

Keywords: Legal law research, primary

sources, secondary sources

I. INTRODUCTION

Legal research can be defined as the

process by which Law-related Information

is discovered and collected which in turn

helps in making legal decisions. In a legal

research, each phase has a course of action

that starts with an examination of the facts

of an issue and ends with the

implementation and presentation of the

investigation results (Steven M. Barkan et

al., 2015). In the beginning, gaining

expertise in legal research is to attain

understanding of the types of materials that

constitute "the law," and the connections

between these resources. While

investigating a legal issue, it is also

appropriate to examine laws (legislative

enactments), cases (judicial opinions),

and/or statutory documents (regulations and

decisions of administrative agencies). All

these resources are considered as "primary

sources." However, most researchers look

for at least one additional resource, called

"secondary sources," to assist their

investigation or research. Mostly, sources

used in Legal Research are Primary

Sources and Secondary Sources.

1. PRIMARY SOURCES

Primary sources refer to the laws

themselves which comes from the official

bodies and it generally includes treaties,

court decisions, tribunals, statutes,

regulations, court records, legal texts and

government documents. The following are

the forms of primary forms of UK law

sources:

Case law provided by the courts

Legislation passed by Parliament

II. CASE LAW

Case law comprises of the decisions

made by the courts and are published as

“law reports” which are considered as the

primary and fundamental sources of UK

laws. The effective Implementation of the

law depends on producing accurate law

reports which contain the facts, issues and

decisions as well as the legal principles on

which the judgment is rendered. The

doctrine of judicial precedents is a peculiar

characteristic of English law, where the

court judgments recorded are a valid source

of law for future decisions.

Law Reports: A law report can be

characterized as the reprint of the full text

comprising of the judgment, statement of

facts and the judicial decisions and

reasoning made by the judges and further

comprises of the additional materials such as

a legislations referred for the case, summary

of the legal issues and a list of cases cited

for that issue. There are many different

series of law reports and some of the most

authoritative series are mentioned here are

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read by the judges before the Publication of

law Reports and corrected by the judges to

ensure high accuracy and precision. The

series are as follows: Appeal Cases (AC),

Family (Fam), Queen’s Bench (QB),

Chancery Division (Ch)

Weekly Law Reports: These are

published to serve as a draft copy of the

cases that will be updated into the official

Law Reports. They also announce other

cases that will not appear in the Law

Reports. They are not adjudicated by judges

and do not include the claims of lawyers.

All England Law: These are the

collection of reports most commonly cited

for recent cases. They are not, however,

corrected by courts, and do not include the

claims of counsel.

Specialist series: Covers a particular

subject area of law, e.g. Criminal Court

Reports, Environmental Law Reports,

Business Law Proceedings, Family Law

Reports, etc.

English Reports: The English

Reports series covers most proceedings

before 1865; it can be found online for free

and there are several websites which offer

free access to selected case laws:

British and Irish Legal Information

Institute (http://www.bailii.org/)

Parliament Publications: House of Lords

Decisions

(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/

pa/ld/ldjudgmt.htm)

Supreme Court Decided Cases

(http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decide

dcases/index.html)

Proceedings of the Old Bailey

(http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/)

III. LEGALIZATION

The UK lacks a clear, written

constitution and it was also described as

"partially written and totally

uncodified." Most of its parts

are written based on the laws passed by the

parliament. Such laws come in the form of

legislation (unless otherwise stated) that is

applicable to the whole of the UK.

Parliament is the UK's highest legislative

body and only Parliament has the power to

pass any legislation it desires. These laws

are equivalent to all other legal sources and

cannot be questioned in the courts.

Draft legislation (Bills): Proposals

for new Laws or changes to current law are

done in the form of Bills. Every year, there

are hundreds of Bills submitted to

Parliament and just a handful of them

become real law.

Primary Legislation: Includes Acts

of Parliament or Statutes (the terms are

interchangeable) and passed by Parliament.

Statutes set the general policy to the

Parliaments in a specific region.

Delegated legislation: Requires

legislative documents which are made by

individuals acting under the authority of the

Parliament under the powers granted by the

Acts to fill in the specifics and to set out

exactly how the acts will operate.

Sources of legislation: They can be

found in print as well as in online.

Public General Acts & Measures

Halsbury’s Statutes

Freely available online: There are

various websites where one can access the

selected legislations for free:

Legislation.gov.uk

(http://www.legislation.gov.uk)

British and Irish Legal Information

Institute (BAILII)

(http://www.bailii.org/)

2. SECONDARY SOURCES

Secondary sources of law are

considered as

the background resources. They illustrate,

describe and they evaluate and analyze.

They comprise of the encyclopedias,

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amendments to the law, treatises, and

restatements. Secondary sources are a good

way to begin research, and often have

primary sources citations. They argue about

the law but they are not the law itself.

Secondary sources, includes Encyclopedias,

Law Journals, and Treatises, and are a great

place to begin your legal research. Like

primary materials, secondary sources can

help you learn about a legal field, and

include references to applicable primary

resources.

IV. LAW JOURNALS

The scope of journals is huge. Most

are general while others cover a particular

field of law. Some have weighty scholarly

claims; others are newsletters that aim to

update the law to practitioners. Many

publications contain a combination of

studies and case commentaries that can help

you clarify the complexities of legal issues.

Law journals can be found in:

Print Search the SOAS library catalogue

(http://lib.soas.ac.uk) for the journal title.

Alternatively, search InforM25

(http://www.inform25.ac.uk/Link/) for other

library catalogues if SOAS does not hold the

print version.

Online via SOAS databases Use the A-Z

Electronic Journals Database

(http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/resources/a-

z/) to access those listed below

The main databases containing Legal

Journals are:

Westlaw UK

Lexis Library

Hein Online

V. TEXTBOOKS

Textbooks are among the best places to

start researching a legal subject. They

comprise of textbooks for students written

by academics e.g. Criminal law by Smith &

Hogan; books by experts that resemble

reference books, e.g. Chitty on Contracts;

and Casebooks containing summaries of

cases on particular subjects e.g. Cases and

Materials by Dine on criminal law.

Textbooks can be found In Print

InforM25

(http://www.inform25.ac.uk/Link/) can

be used for getting material available in

London.

COPAC (http://copac.ac.uk/) can be

used for getting material available in

research libraries within the UK.

Worldcat (http://soas.worldcat.org/)

accessing materials available worldwide.

Textbooks can be obtained from a range

of suppliers and most eBooks are

available via the Library Catalogue but

some of the major repositories include:

Cambridge Books Online, Ebrary, Brill,

UPSO – Oxford (Law Package only) etc

Legal Encyclopedias: Encyclopedias are a

great starting point for law study, as it

provides key points, cases and legislation:

England and Wales Laws of Halsbury:

This provides England and Wales 'only

detailed narrative statement of law. This

includes legislation drawn from all sources

and is written by or in conjunction with

leading lawyers. It is alphabetically arranged

by subject.

Parliamentary and Non-Parliamentary

publications: It is necessary to understand

the context of why a piece of legislation has

come into effect or to understand debates

about a particular field of law. This material

can be found in other publications:

Debates of Parliament: The proceedings

and discusses that take place in the House of

Commons and House of Lords are published

in Hansard – an official list. Hansard is

available from Parliament UK

(http:/www.parliament.uk/business/publicati

ons/)

House of Commons and House of Lords

Papers: Reports, transcripts and committee

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statistics are included. They have been made

available from Parliament UK

(http://www.parliament.uk/business/publicat

ions/)

Non-Parliamentary Publications:

These include reports and briefing papers

from departments and agencies such as

Health Department, Defense Ministry, and

Justice Ministry etc. Most papers can be

found at each department or agency's

website (http://www.direct.gov.uk/)

A typical and often crucial challenge

for a new researcher is to get a perspective

on how these sources can be applied to a

particular subject and how they can be

related to one another. A researcher may

usually need to check several sources, and

use specific techniques for each resource

type. A specific problem can require a

researcher to review relevant materials at

any or all federal, state or local level to

further intensify the issue.

REFERENCES

[1] Steven M. Barkan, Barbara Bintliff & Whisner, M.

(2015). Fundamentals of Legal Research, Tenth

Edition. 3rd Ed. [Online]. Available from:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=

2591470.