Sources of law

This chapter considers where law comes from and where you have to look to find it. As was stated in Chapter 1, in civil law systems one only has to look in the appropriate code to find the law relating to that area. However, in a common law system one has not only to look at the legislation, both primary and secondary, made by Parliament, but also to look in the cases for the judicial statements that actually constitute that common law. Nor should it be forgotten that much of English law is now a restatement of the law of the European Union.