Technicians and the Law

The system of law in England, and in many other countries whose legal systems are based on the English system, has two main sources: case law and statute law. Case law, which may be described as judge-made law, is the source of the general rights to liberty and justice, and has developed over the centuries as judges have been called upon to decide what was fair in particular circumstances. As society has become more complex, it has become increasingly necessary to formalise and to change the rules of what is fair and to define limits on the rights and duties of individuals and organisations, and to spell out these rights and duties in a statute, or Act of Parliament. A recent example of this change is the Health and Safety at Work, etc., Act, 1974 which states, among other things, the duty of working safely to avoid harm to others, which supplements the common law * duty to show reasonable care for others.