The Courts Flashcards
Who are the personnel of the Supreme Court?
Justice of the supreme court
Headed by: President
Who are the personnel of the court of appeal? ( civil division)
Lord and lady justice of appeal
Headed by: master of the rolls
Who are the personnel of the Court of Appeal (criminal division)?
Lord and Lady justice of appeal
headed by: lord / lady chief justice ( also head of the judiciary)
Who are the personnel for the high court?
High Court Judge
HEADED BY:
Kings bench division: president
chancery division: chancellor
family: president
Who are the personnel of the Crown Court?
High court judges circuit judges and recorders ( part time judges)
Who are the personnel of the County Courts?
Circuit judges, recorders, and district judges ( lowest ranking)
Who are the personnel for the magistrate court
magistrates and district judges.
What is the right of audience?
The right of audience is a lawyer’s right to appear and conduct proceedings in court. Barristers have automatic access to appear in all courts.
Solicitors have a right of audience to appear in lower courts. Solicitors can appear in the magistrates and county courts. in order to appear in the Crown Court and superior courts, a solicitor must achieve the ‘Higher right of audience’ qualification, which is an advocacy exam.
What does the doctrine of precedent means?
it means that once a principle of law has been laid down by a superior court, future cases with “the same material facts must be decided in the same way” if the deciding court is bounded by that superior court.
in other words: the courts myst follow previous decisions if they are given by superior courts in relation to the relevant facts and are therefore binding.
what are the two decisions that a superior court can make?
- Binding decision
- non binding part ( also known as obiter dicta) which is highly persuasive.
what is the binding part of the decisions of the court?
this is the decision the court made in relation to the material facts of the case. so it is the law or legal rule that has come from the courts decisions that applies to the facts of the case.
the material facts of the case are those facts that are relevant to the decision the court made.
what is the non binding part of a superior courts decision (obiter dicta)?
Obiter dicta or non-binding, are things said by the way by a judge - it is a comment on the law that does not form part of the decision or the law that comes from the case. - it can be identified by the fact that it is not an actual decision, but usually a discussion.
it is a decision of the court which, if more than one judge is made by a majority judge, a dissenting MINORITY JUDGE’s opinion can never be precedent but it may be obiter dicta.
what is the 3 part test that can determine if lower courts should be bounded by the superior courts decision?
- Are the material facts in the previous case similar to the one we are dealing with?
- Was the previous case decided in a superior court?
- Was the decision of the court the binding one ( ie the main decision of law that applied to the relevant facts, ratyher than merely an obiter dicta statement?)
What are the factors that make an obiter statement?
- discussion by a judge on the facts with no decisions
- something said by a judge in disagreement with the binding decision reached; OR a hypothesis by a judge on what might have been the outcome if the facts were different.
are lower courts bound to higher courts when considering precedents
the general rule is that courts are bound by higher courts and by decisons in their own courts ( with exceptions)
