English Legal System- practice questions Flashcards
What are two features that are essential to the operation of a judicial precedent?
-relies on a clear court hierarchy. this means that lower courts are bound to follow the decisions of higher courts in similar cases. e.g. COA must follow the decisions of the Supreme Court. this ensure consistency and predictability in law.
-another is ratio decidendi which means the ‘reason for the decision’. This is the binding legal principle set out by a judge in a case. It must be followed in later cases with similar facts. without a clear ratio, it would be difficult for other courts to apply the decision consistently.
What are the two aspects of the role of the judge in a criminal case?
One key role of a judge is to control the conduct of the trial. This means ensuring the trial is run fairly and according to legal procedures. The judge manages the courtroom, rules on the admissibility of evidence, and gives directions to the jury if there is one.
Another important role is to impose a sentence if the defendant is found guilty. The judge considers factors such as aggravating and mitigating circumstances, sentencing guidelines, and the seriousness of the offence to decide an appropriate punishment, such as a fine, community order, or prison sentence.
Using two examples, explain extrinsic aids to interpretation?
Extrinsic aids are materials found outside the statute that judges can use to help interpret ambiguous or unclear legislation.
One extrinsic aid is Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary debates. Judges may refer to it when the wording of an Act is ambiguous or unclear, as confirmed in Pepper v Hart (1993). In that case, the House of Lords ruled that Hansard could be used to find the intended meaning behind words used in the statute.
Another extrinsic aid is dictionaries of the time. Judges may look at a dictionary published around the time the statute was enacted to understand how certain words would have been understood at that point in history. For example, in Cheeseman v DPP (1990), the court used a dictionary from 1847 to interpret the word “passenger.”
Explain what is meant by the purposive approach to statutory interpretation.
The purposive approach is a method of statutory interpretation where judges look at the overall purpose or intent of Parliament when interpreting a law, rather than just focusing strictly on the literal meaning of the words.
This approach aims to give effect to the spirit of the law, especially when the wording is vague or unclear. It is commonly used in interpreting laws influenced by EU law or human rights law, where the intention behind the legislation is especially important.
A key case is R (Quintavalle) v Secretary of State for Health (2003), where the House of Lords interpreted the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to include embryos created by cloning, even though they were not mentioned in the original wording, because it fulfilled the purpose of the Act.
