ABSTRACT
Any society quickly finds that it needs rules or laws to enable it to function smoothly. Consider the results if you had decided to drive to work today on the right instead of the left. People need to be able to live and go about their business in certainty, knowing that they can expect others to abide by the same rules. English law may be subdivided in a number of ways. A simple division would be into: criminal law and civil law. Unless some catastrophic event like a war or a revolution occurs, which may cause a country to adopt a completely new system of law, the law-making processes will have developed over a period of centuries. Many of the rules of English law which are still in force are of considerable antiquity. Law-making authority is vested in the Crown and Parliament, although the role of the Crown is now almost entirely formal.
