INTRODUCTION TO 14 LAWS

THE LAW AFFECTS YOU

What does “the Law” mean to you? Many people think instinctively of policemen in uniform and the war against crime. Yet the criminal law is only one, and to ordinary person not to most important, branch of law. The law affects you all the time, not just when you are unlucky enough to receive a summons to appear at a Magistrate’s Court on a motoring charge.

The law is as large as life itself. The law protects the unborn baby, and carries into effect the last wishes of the dying. It has a special care for the children. It makes marriages and breaks them, and lays down rules of behaviour between neighbours. It takes an interest in the housewife’s shopping, and in common place matters like hire purchase and the household laundry. It punishes cruelty to pets.

The law is always there, sometimes to help, sometimes to restrain, and sometimes to compensate for injury, loss, or disappointment. Not unnaturally much of the law is concerned with the home. The law gives protection to the lodger, and the tenant and provides the basis for fair dealing between the buyer and seller of a home. The law even enters into the pleasures of life, helping to prevent the spoiling of the country by litter and sometimes giving assistance to the disappointed holidaymaker, for example.

Since the law is concerned with almost every aspect of human life, it is not surprising that it is a huge subject. There is an encyclopaedic work called Halsbury’s Law of England which is to be found in almost every solicitor’s office and almost every barrister’s chambers. The next runs to thirty nine large volumes, and the index fills another four. Yet even Halsbury’s Laws is not the last word. It is merely a summary which draws the lawyer’s attention to the Acts of Parliament and the court decisions which he must consult if he is to advise properly on a particular problem. The law is constantly being revised and every year two supplementary volumes are needed to bring Halsbury’s Laws up to date. Between issues of supplementary volumes, the law publishers provide frequent revisions.

A short book like this can only be a signpost to a selection of those parts of the law which are of particular interest in everyday life. It can guide and help, but it cannot deal with every circumstance or provides the answer to every problem. The law changes too rapidly for any book, however, to be able to do this. This book refers only to the law as it is in England and Wales. The law in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man is not always quite the same as it is in England and Wales and readers in those parts of the British Isles must bear this in mind.

The first three chapters in this book deal with consumer topics like shopping, hire purchase, and cleaning and household repairs. Then there is a chapter on flats and bed-sitters, and three chapters concerned mainly with motoring and holidays. Insurance is a chapter on its own, though it affects several of the others. Then follow four chapters mostly on domestic subjects – neighbours, visitors, children and pets. Finally there are tow chapters on marriage and inheritance.