In the UK, both sovereign and subject are bound by 820 years of the Common Law, a system that is taken for granted, and understood by few. I have chosen three quotations to explain how important it is to understand the differences between Common and Civil Law as the differences are not about law, but about a system that has created the culture in which those in the Anglosphere live. That culture is under threat on both sides of the atlantic.
Rulers don't like Common Law as it gives individuals rights and thus rulers seem determined to undermine it. Rulers like Civil Law as through it they can control its citizens rather than allow its citizens control of the state. In the UK we have just had our first trial without jury. The European Arrest Warrant allows people to be taken from the UK with no examination of the evidence, no right of appeal, just on the say so of another European court. Habeas Corpus is dead.
Also, Common Law breeds individualism that can flourish in a spirit of freedom. Great men and woman have grown in this culture of freedom. Civil Law breeds or rather forces conformity. Individualism is frowned upon and even repressed.
On the face of it, the 
After last week, I have absolutely no doubt who I would not trust. And why? Justice Secretary Jack Straw is reported as saying that he cannot do anything about an ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) ruling that prisoners be given the vote, and that the development was ‘inevitable' after the Court ruling. There is nothing we can do, because we no longer have an independent judiciary, an independence that is fundamental to our culture and who we are as a country. 
This is the nearest that a government Minister has come to admitting that a greater power rules the UK, to owning up to The Elephant In The Room. From The Chancellor's Pre-Budget speech on 24th November 2008. 