The Anglo-Saxon legal system is a combination of legal norms and the interconnections between them that are characteristic of the UK, USA, Australia and other territories that were once part of the British Empire. It can also be called the Anglo-American system or the legal family. The main provisions of this legal system were formed in the Middle Ages. It is believed that this order originates from the Norman conquest of England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Then, as in all of Europe, the lawmaking right belonged to kings or other royal persons. Since the courts in the capital of the conquered country were royal, and the Normans shifted the old order, the decisions of these courts became legally binding provisions.
So there was a situation when, when considering a specific case, the royal judges made a decision and formulated the rules by which they were guided in the adoption of their verdict. Quite often, judges used customs that had developed outside any legal framework. These decisions were brought to the knowledge of all the other courts in the state, and they should have been guided by the same rules, making similar decisions in similar cases. This type of source of law was called the precedent, that is, the mandatory sample, according to which it was necessary to analyze similar cases. The Anglo-Saxon legal system is characterized by the fact that its legislative norms represent a huge number of precedents.
With the passage of time, the decline of the feudal economic system and the growth of cities and the bourgeoisie, another type of law was formed when the Chancellor of the king, by the rules of a clear procedure, resolved disputes with which the litigants turned to the monarch. This type of legislative authority is called the law of justice, in contrast to the main body of judicial precedents (common law). It can be said that the Anglo-Saxon legal system was dualistic for a long time, because the decisions of both legal branches were recorded separately and had different areas of application.
When judicial reform took place in the country in the second half of the 19th century , both laws, which used a precedent as a normative source, became one. Up to the present day, the tradition of developing legislation based on court decisions is fundamental for the UK, and the entire legal system of society rests on it. Unlike continental law, such rules are more elastic and not so monolithic, but on the other hand they allow a fairly broad interpretation, and a huge role in their enforcement belongs to procedural aspects. Since many of the provisions of Roman law were not incorporated into the “island” totality of legal establishments, which developed autonomously, there is no division into public and private law either.
The legal system of England never knew and still does not know the multivolume codes specific to the rest of Europe. Although in modern society the law is divided into certain types, neither in practice nor in theory these distinctions are given much importance. All courts in this country have common jurisdiction, and the same court can examine cases from civil, criminal, administrative, commercial law, and so on. The hierarchy in this legislative structure does not exist between laws, but between precedents, and the precedence of the precedent depends on what level the court approves it. Decisions adopted by the House of Lords, the Courts of Appeal and the High Courts are of the highest binding force.
The Anglo-Saxon legal system allows you to change the previously adopted precedent, but this requires a resolution of the highest authority or the Parliament. But such cases are very infrequent, especially since it is rarely possible to meet cases like two drops of water similar to each other. Therefore, if the judges consider that the case they are considering does not resemble any other, then they themselves may be the authors of the new rule. In this type of legislative regulation, the powers of judges are extremely broad. However, they are regulated by the so-called statutory law, which consists of laws and regulations adopted by parliament (it is known that about eight dozen such documents are approved each year). Recently, this type of legal system has been playing an increasing role in the "island" system of law.