Statute in the English system of common law: doctrine and practice

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the essence of the statute in the English legal doctrine and legal practice. The author uses a method of researching scientific concepts that explain the statute as a special legal phenomenon. On the basis of a historical and legal comparison of acts of English case law, the idea is expressed that the statute, being a phenomenon of Anglo-Saxon law, historically arose in response to objective shortcomings of judicial precedent. The first British statutes performed two functions: legal implementation of the will of the monarch, which extended to the whole territory of the kingdom, and the compilation of judicial-precedent practice. The hypothesis is expressed, according to which three concepts of understanding the statute have been formed historically: as a royal decree, as a parliamentary act, and as a local law issued by a feudal lord. The modern interpretation of precedent of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition is expressed in the fact that the statute is no longer the result of legal scholars, but it is an objective result of judges’ activities. Therefore, the essence of the modern statute is to summarize the legal positions expressed in judicial precedents.