Passage of Bill Through Parliament in UK

TASK 1

Division of law:

The United Kingdom has three different legal systems: one each for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Court of Appeal which encompasses only England and Wales, consists only of civil division and criminal division. Civil division hears appeals against the decision of the high court and criminal division hears appeals about alleged errors of law in magistrates and crown courts. Constitution of the UK is formed partially in written format. Laws are implemented by the government in the UK.

Sources of law are the origins of law, the binding rules that help to govern a territory. UK consists of different laws and different sources are included to form these laws. Four principal sources of UK law are legislation, common law, European union law, and the European convention on Human Rights.

• LEGISLATION- Legislation is a law created by the legislature. The most important piece of legislation is an act of parliament. The principal legislature is the UK Parliament, which is based in London. This is the only body that has the power to pass laws in all four countries (Pathak, 2013). The UK parliament consists of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons consists of 650 people as members of parliament. These members represent a geographical constituency, whose electors vote using a “ first-past-the-post” system. Each elector has one vote and members who get the highest vote will be elected as MP of that constituency. The House of Lords consists of 800 people, of whom 600 is selected by the queen on recommendations of the Prime Minister. The other members are those who have inherent titles of “Lord” and “Lady” and senior Bishops of the Church of England.
• COMMON LAW- The legal system of England and Wales is based on common law, so decisions of the senior court becomes part of law.
• EUROPEAN UNION LAW- The UK is a member state of the European Union, which means that EU laws will overrule laws made under UK laws.
• THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS- As a member state of the Council of Europe, the UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. This provides UK courts with a law to protect the rights of the general public.

Some other sources of UK law are as follows-

• CASE LAWS- Decisions of the court are the fundamental and primary sources of UK law. Successful development of law depends on relevant cases that provide facts, issues, and decisions as well as legal principles on the basis of which decision is given.
• TEXTBOOKS- Textbooks are one of the starting places to search for legal topics. Textbooks written by academics for students e.g. Smith and Hogan's criminal law. Books include case laws and their decisions e.g. cases and material on criminal law by Dine.
• LAW JOURNALS- The range of general is extensive. Some of them provide common information and some of them are specific to a particular law. Journals consist of a mix of articles and cases that make law easy to understand.

UK parliament has two houses and one of them is totally governed by the Queen of England. She is the highest authority to make decisions in the UK, any law to pass as an act requires the approval of the Queen. This reduces the intervention of the government in decision-making. Parliament is the highest authority to pass laws in a legal system. The decision of Queen to form laws in the country is very important and this leads to a weak legal system in the country.

In a democracy, like the UK nobody is above the law. Thousands of new laws are passed each year in the UK. A proposed new law is called a Bill. Bill is a draft of a legislative proposal and presented to both the houses of parliament. (Hossain, 2013.) A bill must be agreed upon by both houses of parliament and receive royal assent from the Queen before it becomes an act of parliament.

To know the effect of an act on a business by Pegasus, the applicability of an act must be known. To have detailed knowledge regarding an act it's suggested to go through the content of the act. Content includes definitions, the nature of transactions, and businesses that are covered by the particular act.

TASK 2

Pimlico Plumbers Ltd. V Smith turned as a benchmark case in the history of employees. Pimlico Plumbers Ltd. is a UK-based company in which Smith was self-employed for the last six years. After suffering from a heart attack Smith was unfairly dismissed despite being presented as self-employed for the past six years. He was not paid any sick leave and also discriminated is phased by him from employees. The case was centered around the legal categorization of Pimlico's business model.

Pimlico Plumbers Ltd. considered Smith as self-employed and not an employee of the company. Smith was offered a percentage of delivery charges as pay (Weske, 2012.). Drivers must wear Pimlico uniforms and vans are connected with trackers and an identity card is provided to each one of them. Drivers can appoint any other person in their place but they will also be controlled by Pimlico Ltd.

Supreme court rejected an appeal of Pimlico Plumbers Ltd. to consider Smith as self-employed as the court considered Smith as a normal employee. It was mentioned that throughout the week Smith represented the company as all instructions were followed. Only personal performance to work for five days in a week is a personal concern of Smith. After having an attack reducing in working days do not give the right to Pimlico to dismiss him and plead it as he was self-employed.

Supreme court held that Smith is considered as an employee of the company and possesses employment rights to receive sick pay, and holiday pay. He is a worker performing under a contractual agreement and controlled by Pimlico Ltd, which also restricts drivers from working for competitors after leaving the company.

Pegasus also offers a percentage of delivery charges to their drivers. Prior permission of Pegasus is required to substitute any driver and that will also be controlled by the company. Drivers must wear Pegasus uniform drive branded vans tracked by the company and wear Pegasus identity cards. The schedule is sent by the company and all drivers' work is controlled by the company. The Contract executed between Pegasus and drivers has words like “ gross- misconduct” and “wages”. According to the Supreme Court judgment, all these criteria make workers of Pegasus its employees.

Relation of an employee and employer is governed by the Employment Act. To deal with various disputes in employment Pegasus should read various case laws related to employees and have knowledge regarding the Employment Act (Lambooy, 2014). Decisions of previous case laws will help the company to make decisions that are fair and according to law.

TASK 3

A registered company is a company whose name is in the official records of the registrar of companies. Pegasus will be considered a registered company in the UK when it has a branch or whole company that is operated in the UK only. Certain steps that are needed to be followed to form a company in the UK are:-

• Before forming a company structure the company must be selected. Various factors must be considered to select the structure of a company.
• Choose the name of the company that will be registered with the registrar. The name should not resemble any existing company.
• The full address of the office in the UK will be provided to the registrar to make it a registered address of the company and further communications can be sent to that address.
• An object of the company for which it is established is mentioned.
• Details about the share capital structure of a company are provided to the registrar.
• Information regarding the appointment of directors will be provided to the registrar.
• Details about members who are subscribers of MOA will be provided to the registrar.

To register a company MOA (Memorandum Of Association) and AOA (Articles Of Association) will be prepared by the company. MOA is a charter document for a company that shows the relation of the company from outsiders (Kemp, 2014). AOA provides information regarding rules and regulations to be followed in the company.

A company to have a separate legal entity in the eyes of the law needs to follow all these procedures to register it under the Companies Act, of 1862. As per Salomon V A Salomon and Company Ltd. if proper procedure is not followed then it will not be considered as a registered company and the benefit of a separate legal entity will not be enjoyed.

A company acts through two bodies of people- shareholders and a board of directors. The board of directors is in charge of the management of the company's business. They make strategies and operational decisions for the company and are responsible for meeting the statutory obligations of the company. The director manages the day-to-day operations of a company and makes financial decisions to make investments or borrow funds.

The capital of a company can be raised in many such as by issuing shares to the public, borrowing from financial institutions, issuing debt instruments such as debentures, etc. If raising funds through borrowing is not financially viable then funds are raised through the issue of shares to the public at large. To raise funds from the public a company must be registered on the stock exchange of the UK. Rising capital through the issue of shares creates diverse shareholding. Funds that are raised through borrowing create a charge on the company as interest is compulsory to pay. To invest funds in shares company provides dividends to shareholders as a return on investment.

TASK 4

The issue to be dealt with by Pegasus company is to find the alternative of filling a dispute in a legal court system as it is expensive, time-consuming, and confusing. Filling a suit in court takes years to receive a final verdict on that case. The time gap reduces the benefit that can be enjoyed if a decision is made before a few years. Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a process and technique that involves settling disputes outside the courtroom. In ADR both disagreeing parties to reduce litigation of legal system settle at a common term.

When a dispute between parties is resolved without the intervention of the court in an informal manner then it is termed mediation (Apsalyamova and et. al., 2015). To settle a dispute a person acts as a mediator who communicates with both parties and ascertains facts clearly. On the basis of analysis, the mediator makes a settlement on which both parties get agree.

Arbitration is another form of settling a dispute outside the court. The dispute is decided by one or more persons, which renders an “Arbitration Award”. Arbitration award is binding on both the parties on legally enforceable by law. It is considered a process to speedily dispose of disputed cases. The arbitration process of settling a dispute is suitable for Pegasus as it will reduce costs and provide a decision on time.

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CONCLUSION

From the above report, it is concluded that various rules and regulations are followed in the English legal system. This legal system is a combination of various sources from which rules and laws are collected and formed as one law. The procedure to pass any law in the UK parliament is quite simple. A famous case law of Pimlico Plumbers Ltd. Is considered as a benchmark to resolve issues of employees in Pegasus company. The registration process of a company is mentioned which involves certain steps that need to be followed and the role of a director in a company is fully mentioned. This helps to know about different methods to raise capital for a company (Kidholm and et. al., 2012). A procedure that helps to resolve disputes outside court with minimum litigation is discussed for benefit of Pegasus company. Arbitration is considered as most effective method to resolve disputes for Pegasus company.

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