The High Court
Although the High Court is nominally one court, it functions as three separate units, namely the Queen’s Bench Division, the Chancery Division and the Family Division.
Its jurisdiction includes both civil and criminal elements, with some elements being exercisable at first instance and some being exercisable on appeal.
The Queen’s Bench Division’s jurisdiction at first instance is entirely civil, and includes cases in contract and tort. The Queen’s Bench Division’s appellate jurisdiction (which is by far the largest part of the appellate jurisdiction of the High Court as a whole) takes the form of appeals by way of case stated from magistrates’ courts, and from the Crown Court when that court is exercising its appellate jurisdiction. Appeals by way of case stated can raise points of law only. In procedural terms, the court whose decision is being appealed sends the Queen’s Bench Division a written statement of the facts of the case, as they were either agreed by the parties or found by the court, together with the court’s understanding of the relevant law, and the way in which that law applied to those facts. The Queen’s Bench Division then says whether the lower court got the law, and its application to the facts, right or wrong. It will then usually send the case back to the court from which it came, telling it either what decision it should make, or leaving it to come to its own decision in the light of the law as it was found to be on the appeal. Sometimes, particularly in minor cases where a substantial period of time has elapsed in waiting for the appeal to be heard, the High Court may content itself by giving judgment on the relevant point of law, without sending the case back at all.The Queen’s Bench Division also has a supervisory jurisdiction, which, as we saw at p. 53, is simply another way of saying it has jurisdiction by way of judicial review. This jurisdiction, which in practice almost always involves cases decided by a magistrates’ court (but can also arise from decisions of a Crown Court exercising its appellate jurisdiction) covers both civil and criminal cases.The Chancery Division has only civil jurisdiction, and deals with cases involving company law, property, inheritance disputes and similar matters. It is almost entirely at first instance, although it does include a few types of appeal from the County Courts.
The essence of the Family Division’s jurisdiction is self-evident from its title, and includes divorce.
High Court judges are technically known as puisne judges. (Puisne, pronounced puny, does not indicate lack of power but is simply an old word for junior.) Their formal style is always written as Blank J but is always spoken as Mr (or Mrs) Justice Blank. Describing a High Court judge as Judge Blank, or even as Justice Blank (without the Mr or Mrs) is the sort of error which marks you out either as someone who is uneducated in the law or as someone who cannot be bothered with detailed accuracy. You would be foolish to project either of these images of yourself into the mind of whoever is marking your work. (We will explain how to deal orally with the titles of judges in Chapter 12, in the context of mooting.)
More on the topic The High Court:
- The Court of Appeal
- The Crown Court
- The European Court of Human Rights
- The Supreme Court and the House of Lords
- The centumviral court
- Legislative interpretation in the European Court of Justice
- Court of the emperor
- Legislative interpretation in the European Court ofHuman Rights
- Citing law reports
- Binding precedent in relation to specific courts
- Tribunals and inquiries
- Introduction
- The report and the boxed commentary
- Protection of human rights by the common law
- The range of law reports
- SUMMARY
- Having studied this chapter you should be able to explain: