Trials take place in either the magistrates’ courts or the Crown Court, depending on the nature of the offence, as follows:
• Summary offences cover
less serious criminal activity and are decided by the magistrates.
• Indictable offences are
the most serious and are tried before a jury in the Crown Court.
• Offences triable either
way may be tried by magistrates with the agreement of the defendant; otherwise,
they go to the Crown Court.
Appeals
• Appeals from magistrates’
courts are to the Crown Court or the High Court by way of case stated.
• Appeals from the Crown
Court are to the Court of Appeal, and may be as to sentence or conviction.
• Appeals from the Court of
Appeal or the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court are to the House of Lords, but
only on a point of law of general public importance.
Civil courts
• Magistrates’ courts have
limited but important civil jurisdiction in licensing and, especially, as a
family proceedings court under the Children Act 1989.
• County courts try personal
injuries cases worth up to £50,000. Other actions up to £25,000 should normally
be heard by them. Whether actions between £25,000 and £50,000 are heard in the
county court or the High Court depends upon the substance, importance and
complexity of the case.
• The High Court consists of
three Divisions:
❍ the
Queen’s Bench Division deals with contract and tort, amongst other things. Its
Divisional Court hears applications for judicial review;
❍
Chancery deals with matters relating to commercial matters, land, bankruptcy, probate,
etc. Its Divisional Court hears taxation appeals; and
❍ the
Family Division hears matrimonial and child related cases. Its Divisional Court
hears appeals from lower courts on these issues.
• The Court of Appeal usually
consisting of three judges, hears appeals from the High Court and county court
and, in most cases, is the ultimate court of appeal.
• The House of Lords hears
appeals on points of law of general importance. Appeals are heard from the
Court of Appeal and may rarely, under the ‘leapfrog’ provision, hear appeals
from the High Court.
• The Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council is the final court of appeal for those Commonwealth countries
which have retained it as the head of their national legal systems.
• The European Court of
Justice interprets and determines the application of EC law throughout the
Community. In such matters, its decisions bind all national courts.
• The European Court of
Human Rights decides cases in the light of the European Convention on Human
Rights. It has no mechanism for directly enforcing its decisions against Member
States. However, the Human Rights Act 1998 has incorporated the Convention into
UK law; consequently, UK courts are bound to decide cases in line with its
provisions.
LTERNATIVE
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
ARBITRATION
The first and oldest of
these alternative procedures is arbitration. This is the procedure whereby
parties in dispute refer the issue to a third party for resolution, rather than
taking the case to the ordinary law courts. Studies have shown a reluctance on
the part of commercial undertakings to have recourse to the law to resolve
their disputes. At first sight, this appears to be paradoxical. The development
of contract law can, to a great extent, be explained as the law’s response to
the need for regulation in relation to business activity, and yet businesses
decline to make use of its procedures. To some degree, questions of speed and
cost explain this peculiar phenomenon, but it can be explained more fully by
reference to the introduction to this chapter. It was stated there that
informal procedures tend to be most effective where there is a high degree of mutuality
and interdependency, and that is precisely the case in most business relationships.
Businesses seek to establish and maintain long term relationships with other
concerns. The problem with the law is that the court case tends to terminally rupture
such relationships. It is not suggested that, in the final analysis, where the stakes
are sufficiently high, recourse to the law will not be had; such action,
however, does not represent the first, or indeed the preferred, option. In
contemporary business practice it is common, if not standard, practice for
commercial contracts to contain express clauses referring any future disputes
to arbitration. This practice is well established and its legal effectiveness
has long been recognised by the law.
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