heirachy of civil courts

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Hierarchy of the civil courts

The diagram bellows shows the hierarchy of the various English courts. There are two branches to the courts system: civil and criminal. This lesson deals with the civil courts. Those courts which are primary civil courts and are highlighted in bold, although, as you will read, some types of civil cases may be heard in the magistrate’s court.

HOUSE OF LORDS

COURT OF APPEAL

Criminal Division                                          Civil Division

CROWN COURT                                           HIGH COURT

MAGISTRATES COURT                                 COUNTY COURT

Historical Development of the courts

The present structure of the court system dates from the judicature act 1873, which established the supreme court of judicature. This court, currently termed the Supreme Court, consists of the high court of justice, the crown court and the court of appeal

Courts exercising civil jurisdiction

The courts are responsible for administering justice. The phrase “exercising civil jurisdiction” refers to courts that have the power to deal with civil (rather than criminal) cases.

The principal inferior court exercising civil jurisdiction is the county court, although magistrates’ courts hear some civil cases. There are three main superior courts exercising civil jurisdiction: the high court of justice, the court of appeal (civil division) and the House of Lords.

The court in which a case first appears will be dependent upon the nature of the case and/or the value of the claim

Appeals

If someone is unhappy about the decision made by the judge responsible for their case, they may be able to appeal against the decision to a higher court. In most civil cases a judge’s permission to appeal is required.

An underlying principle of the appeals system (or ‘appellate’ system) is that individuals who have grounds for dissatisfaction with the outcome of their cases should always be able to have the case looked at by the higher court so that it can consider whether there appears to have been an injustice and, if so, allow an appeal to proceed.

The appeal routes are described in the sections below.

Inferior Courts

  1. County courts: established by the county courts act 1846 to operate the chief lower courts for the trial of civil disputes, the county courts deal with the vast majority of civil disputes. The county courts act 1984 governs most proceedings in the county courts, but this was amended by the high court and county court amendment order 1997.

The judges who preside over the proceedings in county courts are circuit judges appointed by the crown on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, following selection by the judicial appointments commission. They must be barristers of at least 10 years, with busy courts in urban areas having a number of joint district judges

Examples of cases heard in the county courts include

  • landlord and tenants disputes
  • consumer disputes
  • personal injury claims
  • undefended divorce cases
  • race, sex and disability discrimination cases
  • debt problems
  • employment problems

Since the implementation of the Woolf Reforms (which resulted from Lord Woolfs Access to justice reports 1996), civil cases are assigned to one of three ‘tracks’ according to their value. Cases where the value of the claim is expected to be £15,000 or less (or, in the case of a personal injury claim, less than £50,000) are usually heard in the county court

A county court appeal lies from a district judge to a circuit judge and from circuit judge to a high court judge.

  1. Magistrates’ courts: although these are essentially criminal courts, magistrates also have a civil jurisdiction, e.g. the making of affiliation orders and authorising the recovery of small debts. Their main civil jurisdiction is concerned with domestic proceedings and applications for matrimonial relief such as separation and maintenance orders- see the domestic proceedings and magistrates’ court act 1978.

They also deal with questions concerning the residence and adoption of children and the giving of permission for persons under 18 to marry where they cannot obtain their parents consent. Domestic proceedings are dealt with in separate branches of the magistrates’ court known as the family proceedings court and family panels- see s.92 and schedule II of the CHILDREN ACT 1989.

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In civil cases, appeal from magistrates’ courts usually lies to a divisional court of the family division of the high court.

Superior courts

  1. The high court of justice

The high court deals with the more serious civil cases, and hears most appeals from the county courts. Is also hears appeals about decisions made by the tribunals services which you will find out about further through the lesson. In addition, s you will find out in the next lesson, it hears appeals in some criminal cases.

Although originally divided fro administrative purposes into five divisions: queens bench division, common ...

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