Lesson 3 kinds of law in the United states

Text 1 Law in the United States

There are 51 legal systems in the United States: the federal system and a separate system in each of the 50 states. Although these systems are mainly similar, they also have important differences. The basic reason for these differences is that each of the 13 original states was previously sovereign (independent).

The US law consists of the following:

1 The Constitution of the United States and of 50 states, and charters or constitutions for cities and counties;

2 The statutes enacted by elected representatives;

3 Administrative law;

4 Case law, as expressed in court decisions.

These four types of law are each created by federal and state governments. Local governments generally create only statutory and administrative laws.

Constitutional Law

Constitutions are the supreme sources of law. The federal Constitution of the United States is said to be “the supreme law of the land”. This means that any state law — including a part of a state constitution — is void to the extent that it conflicts with the federal Constitution.

The Supreme Court of the US is the final interpreter of the federal Constitution and each state supreme court is the final authority on the meaning of its state constitution.

The federal and state constitutions allocate powers:

1 Between the people and their governments,

2 Between state governments and the federal government,

3 Among the branches of the government.

The federal Constitution is the main instrument for allocating powers between persons and their governments. It does this with its first ten amendments to the constitution, called the Bill of Rights, which protect citizens from certain acts of their governments.

The federal Constitution allocates governmental powers to the federal government and certain other powers to the state governments.

State and federal constitutions allocate governmental powers among the three branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Constitutions do this to create a system of checks and balances among the branches so that no branch of government becomes too powerful.