<P> Ghana, after independence, did not do away with the common law system inherited from the British, and today it has been enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of the country . Chapter four of Ghana's Constitution, entitled "The Laws of Ghana", has in Article 11 (1) the list of laws applicable in the state . This comprises (a) the Constitution; (b) enactments made by or under the authority of the Parliament established by the Constitution; (c) any Orders, Rules and Regulations made by any person or authority under a power conferred by the Constitution; (d) the existing law; and (e) the common law . Thus, the modern - day Constitution of Ghana, like those before it, embraced the English common law by entrenching it in its provisions . The doctrine of judicial precedence which is based on the principle of stare decisis as applied in England and other pure common law countries also applies in Ghana . </P> <P> Edward Coke, a 17th - century Lord Chief Justice of the English Court of Common Pleas and a Member of Parliament, wrote several legal texts that collected and integrated centuries of case law . Lawyers in both England and America learned the law from his Institutes and Reports until the end of the 18th century . His works are still cited by common law courts around the world . </P> <P> The next definitive historical treatise on the common law is Commentaries on the Laws of England, written by Sir William Blackstone and first published in 1765--1769 . Since 1979, a facsimile edition of that first edition has been available in four paper - bound volumes . Today it has been superseded in the English part of the United Kingdom by Halsbury's Laws of England that covers both common and statutory English law . </P> <P> While he was still on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and before being named to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. published a short volume called The Common Law, which remains a classic in the field . Unlike Blackstone and the Restatements, Holmes' book only briefly discusses what the law is; rather, Holmes describes the common law process . Law professor John Chipman Gray's The Nature and Sources of the Law, an examination and survey of the common law, is also still commonly read in U.S. law schools . </P>

Legislatures did not become a principal source of law in the u.s. until the 20th century.​