British Law and Now I Know Why American Law is the Way it is

My second class for the first summer school was British Law and Legal processes. I originally had picked this class so that I could fulfill a political science requirement but I ended up learning a lot not only about the British legal system but also America's and other people's countries. One of the great things about the Cambridge program is that you meet people from all over the world as well as have classes with me and learn different perspectives. My class had people from Germany, India, Mexico, China and Holland as well as from all over America. The first part of the class was just teaching the basic principles of law and justice, the second part of the class went into the basic components of the English law system. Some of the ways that the English law system works is very different from our own and some are a little shocking. Here they have magistrate courts which means that instead of having a jury trial you go in front of three unpaid lay people who decide your fate. Magistrate cases are usually the smaller offense but they can still levy fines and sentences without really knowing the law all that well. One of the only good things that I can see about this is that the court system does not get back logged like a lot do in the United States. Another surprising part about the English legal system is that the Queen is above the law whatever she does she can get away with there is no way to prosecute her. in America there are people that can seem like they are above the law politicians or celebrities but they still cannot get away with anything. The teacher put it like this if the people did not like something the Queen did then there would need to be a revolution for anything to change. The British also do not have a written constitution or document that is above law such as a bill of rights. I found this confusing since the government in the US is constantly in check by what the Constitution says or the Bill of Rights. England has a general bill of rights, but nothing that if a person wanted to challenge what Parliament passed they would have nothing to go to, to point out their rights. The class was definitely an eye opener in that two countries so similar in culture and a lot of things could be so different in their legal systems. It also helped me to realize that the American legal system was set up the way it was in order to go against some of the things that they saw as unjust in the English legal system.

One thing that surprised me a lot about the English and Europeans as a whole was their fascination with the Presidential election. The first night I was here a lady from Denmark asked who I was going to vote for at dinner which took me by surprise since in the US you never really go up to someone and ask them straight out who they would vote for. You might talk about politics not normally at the dinner table though it has become less taboo. I was able to turn the question around and ask her who she would vote for if she could and she said Obama. Which is another thing they love over here is Obama (if you couldn't tell by his trip over here). They definitely want him to win and one kind from the Netherlands asked me where he could get an Obama shirt. Europeans cannot understand why people pay to go see a politician speak where over here the politicians pay them to come and see them speak.


More later about the end of term 1 and the beginning of term 2

KP