2 Sources of English Law and American Law

England (the hierarchy, in the exam's order):1. Legislation: Acts of Parliament — the sovereign source ("Parliament can make or unmake any law" — Dicey); the constitutional statutes' special status (the modern courts' recognition — Thoburn); delegated legislation;2. Case law (precedent): the doctrine of binding precedent — stare decisis et non quietamovere; the House of Lords' 1966 Practice Statement (freeing itself from itself); the Supreme Court (2009, replacing the Appellate Committee) and the Court of Appeal's vertical/horizontal bindings; ratio decidendi (the binding core) vs. obiter dictum (the persuasive aside); the distinguishing technique — the system's engine;3. Custom: the ancient source — local and (rarely) general custom of the realm;4. Books of authority (Coke, Blackstone — the "ancient writers" as subsidiary sources);5. EU law's legacy and international law (treaties incorporated; the Human Rights Act 1998's interpretive duty);6. Equity — as case law's twin stream.America (the same family, different hierarchy's apex):1. The written Constitution — the supreme source: federal supremacy (Art. VI); judicialreview (Marbury) — unconstitutional statutes void; the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment's incorporation (the states bound to rights);2. Federal statutes and treaties;3. Federal regulations (the administrative state);4. State constitutions, statutes, codes (the fifty systems; the UCC's near-uniform adoption; the states' common-law residuum — Louisiana's civil-law exception);5. Case law — the precedent doctrine (vertical: binding; horizontal: persuasive — the US…