Sources of law

[1] Following the Aristotelian notion of the four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final causes), Riofrio also develops additional potential sources of law.

After WWII it was not a valid defence at Nuremberg to say "I was only obeying orders", and the victors hanged Nazis for breaching "universal and eternal standards of right and wrong".

Legislation, rules, and regulations form the tangible source of laws which are codified and enforceable.

European nations that join the EU thereby adopt all EC Law to date (the acquis communautaire), namely: treaty provisions, regulations, directives, decisions, and precedents.

Member States become subject to "Brussels"[7] and to the binding precedent decisions[8] of the Court of Justice of the European Union (or CJEU) in Luxembourg.

Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to enable, to proscribe, to provide funds, to sanction, to grant, to declare or to restrict.

In the UK, such delegated legislation includes Statutory Instruments, Orders in Council, & Bye-laws.

Judgments passed by judges in important cases are recorded and become significant source of law.

When there is no legislature on a particular point which arises in changing conditions, the judges depend on their own sense of right and wrong and decide the disputes from first principles.

Another definition[13] declares precedent to be," a decision in a court of justice cited in support of a proposition for which it is desired to contend".

They typically are found within the English legal system, and they help compensate for the UK's lack of a single written constitution.

For instance, after the Finance Act 1909, the House of Lords lost its power to obstruct the passage of bills, and now may only delay them.

Britain's tradition with its colonies is that they are self-governing (although, historically, rarely with universal suffrage), and that the mother-country should stay aloof.