Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Rhagfyr 1973.
Mr John Mendelson
, Penistone
12:00,
4 Rhagfyr 1973
The hon. Gentleman has quoted one trade union leader who is at work at this time—Mr. Scanlon—as saying that the members of his union are perfectly law abiding. That the union is law abiding is borne out by the long history of the organisation. If the hon. Gentleman came to Sheffield I could take him to a humble place where one of the predecessors of the union, the scissors-grinders, in 1804, after the anti-combination Laws had been passed in 1799, were as law abiding as they had been in 1797, but broke the law because they thought it monstrous that the anti-combination laws should be the law of the land.
A group of workers who have united to promote their common interests.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
