Exam Unit Flashcards
What two ways can laws be made?
-Government processes
-Judicial processes
What are the three parts of parliament?
House of Commons
House of Lords
The monarchy
What is the process of parliamentary law making?
Green paper, white paper, draft bill, first reading, second reading, committee stage, report stage, third reading, other house, royal assent
What are the two judicial processes that allow judges to create a law?
Judicial precedent
Statutory interpretation
What is judicial precedent?
When a case appear before a judge that is similar to no other, they must make a judgement which forms a law that must be followed in all similar cases.
What case studies can be used for judicial precedent?
Donoghue v Stephenson 1932 when two women drank a bottle of ginger beer that had a decomposing snail in it and fell ill leading to them suing the manufacturer, winning the case and creating a precedent that founded modern day negligence law.
Daniels v White 1938 followed this when they felt burning in throat from corrosive metal in lemonade bottle he drank. The above case was used as precedent when they sued for compensation.
What are the exceptions to this rule?
Distinguishing= when the facts of the case are different so precedent doesn’t apply.
Over ruling= when a higher court states that the previous cases verdict is wrong and sets a new precedent.
What is the court hierarchy?
Supreme Court
Court of appeals
Crown court
Magistrates court
What is statutory interpretation?
When a judge in a superior court is called upon to interpret words or phrases in a statute or act of parliament. They do this by using one of three rules.
What are the three rules for statutory interpretation?
Literal rule
Golden rule
Mischief rule
What’s the literal rule? And a case study?
Judges take the literal everyday meanings of the words used. However a problem with this may occurs with words that have several meanings. For example, in
R v Maginnis 1987judges found different meanings of the word “supply”.
What is the golden rule? Give a case study to support.
When the literal meaning of a word is modified to avoid an absurd reaction. For example, Paler v George 1964 argued that he was not in the vicinity of a protected space as he was actually in it. The court applied the golden rule.
What is the mischief rule? Case study?
Allows the court to enforce what the statute was intended to achieve rather than the actual words of the statute. For example, the listening act 1872 makes it an offence to be in charge of a carriage while drunk but in Corkery v Carpenter 1951, Corkery was found guilty even though he was in charge of a bike not a carriage.
What does Whiteley v Chapel 1868 say?
A man was found not guilty of impersonating any person allowed to vote as the man he was impersonating was dead and therefore was not eligible to vote. The literal rule was applied here.
What is the role of the police?
They are responsible for enforcing the criminal law, and they:
Investigate crimes, collect evidence, arrest, detained and questioned suspects, issued a caution or fixed penalty notice if applicable.
They work out of 43 regional police forces within England and Wales
What is the role of the CPS?
The CPS is an independent prosecution service for England and Wales that:
Advises the police in investigations, assesses evidence that the police submits to them, decides whether or not to prosecute and what the charge will be using the full code test, prepared and present the prosecutors case in court.
They deal with half 1 million cases per year and have a 24 hour hotline for the police to get advice.
What is the role of the courts?
The magistrates court = less serious offences, 95% of all cases are heard here, all bail and plea hearings are heard here.
The crown court = Deals with more serious offences that are triable by a judge and a jury, the defendant must plead not guilty.
What is the role of the prison service?
HM Prison services supervisors offenders in custody and aim to rehabilitate the offenders under their supervision
