What Is Statute Law?

There are six main sources of the British constitution. Statute laws (an Act of Parliament) have come to be regarded as having special significance because they contain rules relating to certain rights or duties of the citizen or to how the government of the country should be organised. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 (which affords some protection for the citizen against wrongful imprisonment) is an example of a statute of constitutional significance. Other examples include the Representation of the People Acts which stipulate the rules under which elections take place and the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1914 which place limits on the House of Lords.

Parliament can pass any law it wishes (in theory) which allows statute law to take precedence over other sources of the constitution. However, this does not mean that it is all-powerful. For example, in 1972, Parliament passed the European Communities Act which led to Britain joining the European Economic Community. Although the EEC (or the EU) said that European Law is binding and that it takes precedence over domestic law, it is possible to argue that Parliament has the power to repeal the Act at any time which therefore states that statute law still takes precedence over European law.

The term 'statute law' is used as a noun and it describes al the written laws passed by the parliament. The word is used only when all the laws are considered as a group and not otherwise. The following sentence can help you in understanding the word if you want to use it yourself: A country is governed by the statute law and it is the parliament that passes these laws.

There are several words that are based on the same root and all of them are more or less conveying the same idea. The most popular among them is the word 'statute' itself and it conveys the idea of a law that a parliament passes and then it is formally written down for the countrymen to follow.