The House of Lords was the highest court of appeal in the United Kingdom until 30 July 2009. Since 1 October 2009, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has had jurisdiction over all civil cases in the United Kingdom and all criminal cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/royal-courts-of-justice-cause-list/royal-courts-of-justice-daily-cause-list The King`s Bench Division has jurisdiction over subordinate courts, and its administrative court is usually the appropriate forum before which the validity (but at least in principle not the merits) of official decisions can be challenged. In general, unless specific appeal procedures are provided, the validity of a decision of a minister, lower court, court, local authority or official body may be challenged by a person having a sufficient interest by judicial review before the Administrative Tribunal of the King`s Bench Division. A single judge first decides whether the case can be brought before the courts (to filter out frivolous or indisputable cases) and, if so, the case can be referred to a full judicial review hearing with one or more judges. The King`s Bench Division – or Queen`s Bench Division if the monarch is a woman – has two roles. It handles a large number of common law cases and also has a special responsibility as a reviewing court. Until 2005, the head of KBD was the Lord Chief Justice. The position of President of the King`s Bench Division was created by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, so that the Lord Chief Justice is President of the Courts of England and Wales, Chief Justice of England and Wales and Head of Criminal Justice. [6] Sir Igor Judge was the first person to hold this position, appointed in October 2005. [6] [7] In addition to High Court judges, other qualified persons such as retired judges, county court district judges and barrists are appointed to sit as deputy judges of the High Court to hear certain cases, and during the session they are called as if they were titular judges of the High Court. Sometimes trials in London are conducted by Masters, who have almost the same competence as Full High Court judges, but do not hear prison sentences, criminal cases or judicial reviews, and do not go “in circles” to distant courts.
Members of the public with questions about court cases should contact their local registry or court of competent jurisdiction. If your application requires the services of Tipstaff, please call 020 7947 6200 or 020 7947 6713 and speak to Tipstaff before appearing in court or making your application. Learn more about the different types of courts and their specific types of case handling New judgments and decisions ready for publication are disseminated directly by the courts and tribunals – the National Archives will never change them. However, if we receive multiple versions over time, we will retain all digital copies, but will only publish the latest version approved by the court. Most proceedings before the High Court are heard by a single judge, but certain types of proceedings, particularly in the Kings`s Bench Division, are assigned to a divisional court – a bank with two or more judges. Exceptionally, the court may sit with a jury, but in practice usually only in cases of defamation or against the police. Litigants are usually represented by a lawyer, but may be represented by lawyers qualified to be heard, or they may act in person. As highly qualified full-time judges, the Law Lords exercised the judicial work of the House of Lords until 30 July 2009. Historically, the ultimate source of all justice in England has been the monarch. All judges judge on behalf of the monarch (so they have the royal coat of arms behind them) and prosecutions are usually conducted on behalf of the monarch.
Historically, local tycoons enforced the law in majestic courts and other ways. Inevitably, the judiciary was unequal and appeals were made directly to the monarch. The monarch`s roving representatives (whose main purpose was the collection of taxes) acted on behalf of the monarch to make the administration of justice more equitable. In addition, the Divisional Court of King`s Bench hears appeals from the Magistrates` Courts[a] and the Crown Court. [b] Appeals are referred to as points of law are examined solely on the basis of the facts established and established by the authority to be reviewed. Other specialized courts in the King`s Bench Division include the Technology and Construction Tribunal, the Commercial Court and the Admiralty Tribunal. The specialized judges and procedures of these courts are adapted to their type of activity, but do not differ significantly from other KBD courts. The High Court consists of three divisions: the King`s Bench Division, the Chancery Division and the Family Division. Their responsibilities overlap in some cases, and cases in one division may, where appropriate, be transferred to another by court order. The differences in procedures and practices between the departments are partly historical and result from the separate courts established by the judicial laws of the 19th century. It is mainly determined by the usual nature of their work, for example, contradictory factual evidence is often given personally to the King`s Bench Division. However, affidavit evidence is more common in the Chancery Division, which deals primarily with legal issues.
The establishment of the High Court of Commercial and Property Courts of England and Wales was announced in March 2017[9] and launched in London in July 2017. [10] The courts would henceforth administer the specialized courts previously administered by the King`s Bench Division under the names of Admiralty Court, Commercial Court and Technology and Construction Tribunal and by the Chancery Division under the Corporate, Corporate and Bankruptcy Lists, Competition Lists, finance, intellectual property, revenue and trusts and estates. The amendment should allow judges with appropriate expertise and experience in specialized commercial and real estate courts to sit in specialized courts while maintaining existing practices for cases before them. [11] The first collection of judgments and decisions will amount to 50,000, dating back to 2003 for court decisions and 2015 for court decisions. Users can search by neutral citation, party name, judge`s name, court/chamber, and date. The National Archives today assumed responsibility for the external publication of court judgments and created the first publicly accessible government database of judgments. The new service, known as Find Case Law, begins publishing the decisions of the courts and tribunals of the superior court clerks – Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court and Superior Courts. Going forward, the National Archives will continue to work with the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice to include judgments from more courts and tribunals and include historical judgments in service. As this is a new service, we will continue to improve it in the months and years to come, help us improve the service by giving us your feedback.
The court may exclude observers if this is necessary to ensure the proper administration of justice. The High Court of Justice was established in 1875 by the Supreme Court of Justice Act 1873. The Act merged eight existing English courts – the Court of Chancery, the Court of King`s Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Exchequer Court, the High Admiralty Court, the Probate Court, the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and the London Bankruptcy Court – into a new Supreme Court of Justice (now known as the Senior Courts of England and Wales). The new Supreme Court was divided into the Court of Appeal, which exercised appellate jurisdiction, and the High Court, which exercised initial jurisdiction. Archived judgments of the House of Lords are the only jurisdiction that Parliament has. For any other court decision, you must use a legal information service such as the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII), to which you have free access. British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) Since October 2015, the Chancery Division and the Commercial Court have maintained the financial list of cases that would benefit from a hearing by judges with appropriate expertise and experience in the financial markets or that raise issues of general interest to the financial markets. The procedure was introduced to enable quick, efficient and high-quality settlement of financial market disputes. [8] Judges of Her Majesty`s Supreme Court are informally referred to as judges of the Supreme Court and, in court cases, officially referred to as “the Honourable Justice (given name) Surname”, abbreviated to “Surname J”. In court, they are properly called My Lord or My Wife. As they are knighted by convention upon appointment, they are socially referred to as Sir Forename or Dame Forename. High Court judges are sometimes called red judges after the color of their formal robes, as opposed to junior district judges, who are called purple judges for the same reason.
Masters (also High Court judges) are called “Masters” regardless of gender and wear dark blue robes with pink tabs that reflect the red of the High Court judges` robes. Within the Chancery Division of the High Court, there are also judges of the bankruptcy and corporate courts who hear the majority of High Court insolvency cases (private and corporate) and corporate law, as well as some appeals to the county courts.
