The development of the law relating to bills of exchange in the Anglo-American legal system provides an instructive example of the interdependence of the judicial and legislative functions in legal development. The groundwork consists of over 2,500 cases concerning bills decided in England since 1602, when the first case on bills was decided by the common law courts. These decisions were based on the custom of merchants—whether in England or abroad—and on the writings of jurists from commercially advanced countries. Notwithstanding the great number of decided cases, the law was mostly uniform, owing to the judges' inclination to follow rulings given by their brethren and their desire to retain the uniformity of customary mercantile law. In 1882 the law in England was cast in statutory form and this was copied in toto, with minor changes, by many legal systems, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ceylon, Cyprus and Palestine. Both in England and in countries which adopted the statute only few amendments have been made, thereby lending weight to Mackinon L.J's dictum that the English Bills of Exchange Act is the best law ever enacted by the British Parliament. Indeed, the drafting is clear and effective and has given rise to comparatively little litigation both in England and abroad. Whenever called upon to construe the Act, the English courts have usually interpreted it literally, with strict adherence to the letter of the law, and this interpretation was followed by other courts, whether by reason of the binding force of precedents or in order to maintain uniformity in the law. A monolithic system was thus created, based on a literal interpretation of the Act.
Some Clarifications in the Law of Commercial Paper under the Proposed Uniform Commercial Code