Civil Courts Roles Flashcards
Outline the courts and appeal
Supreme court
Court of appeal (civil division) - county court (inc small claims court)
High court
Queens bench division - family division - chancery division
What do courts on first instance hear?
Civil disputes between individuals, partnerships, companies and/ or local or national government department.
What are the 2 main civil courts on first instance?
County and high court.
Magistrates have some civil jurisdiction.
Cases may be commended and decided there.
If a party disputes the decision they may ask a higher court to reconsider (appeal).
How many courts county courts are there in England wales? And what do they hear?
216 - hear lower level civil disputes.
How many high court district registers are there in England and wales and what do they hear?
26 - hear higher level civil cases - does have jurisdiction to hear all types of civil dispute.
Magistrates court
- Jurisdiction over most family matters but not divorce.
- Recovery of unpaid council tax.
- Charges for water, gas and electricity.
- Hear appeals from local authority about granting license for gambling and sale of alcohol.
County court
- Deals with many types of civil disputes including contract, tort and divorce.
What are the 3 types of civil cases?
- Small claims
- Fast track
- Intermediate track
- Multi track
High court
- Three division - queens bench division, family division and chancery division.
- Subdivided into - courts where claims may be issued and courts where appeals from lower courts are heard.
120 high court judges.
High court - queens bench division
- Main court
- Deals with mainly tort cases
- 74 high court judges sitting in this court
- Often heard in the royal courts of justice
- May be heard by one high court district judge registries
- Multi track cases may be heard here
High court - family division
- All aspects of family matters
- Divorce, related children
- Fianncial claims
- Adoption
- Care proceedings
High court - chancery division
- Modern versions deal with- partnership disputes, company law, wills/ trusts, bankruptcy, sale of land or creation of mortgages.
- 17 judges
- Heard at royal courts of justices or at one of 8 chancery centres around the country.
Appeals from county court
- District judge to circuit judge
- Circuit judge to high court judge
- Further appeals occasionally allowed under S55 of Access to justice act 1999
Appeals from high court
- Normally to court of appeal civil division.
- Occasionally leapfrog procedure to Supreme Court
Reforms by Woolf Report
- track system and gave judges more responsibility for managing cases hopefully reducing costs and delays.
- Simplified rules - one document: civil procedure rules
Problems:
- ADR isn’t used enough - courts should be used a last resort.
- Costs of cases have incraesed.
- IT systems are limited.
Lord Briggs Report 2016
- An out of hours private mediation service in the County Court.
- Online Court.
Small claims:
- Up to £10,000 general damage and 1,000 personal injury.
- Small claims court
- Last a few hours, informal, no witnesses, no costs normally allowed.
- District judge.
Fast track:
- 1/10.000 - 25.000
- County court
- One day, one expert per party, fixed costs.
- Circuit judge
Intermediate track
- 25.000 - 100.000
- COunty court
- 3 days - 2 experts per party
- Circuit judge
Multi track
- Over 100.000
- High court
- All other
- High court judge
