In an extradition, one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions, and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction.
The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the trier of fact. If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges. The prosecution must in most cases prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted. The opposite system is a presumption of guilt.
Human rights in the United Kingdom concern the fundamental rights in law of every person in the United Kingdom. An integral part of the UK constitution, human rights derive from common law, from statutes such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Human Rights Act 1998, from membership of the Council of Europe, and from international law.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom's highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption,, KC, is a British author, medieval historian, barrister and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018, and a Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal from 2019 to 2024.
Andrew Stephen Burrows, Lord Burrows, is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. His academic work centres on private law. He is the main editor of the compendium English Private Law and the convenor of the advisory group that produced A Restatement of the English Law of Unjust Enrichment as well as textbooks on English contract law. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on 2 June 2020. As Professor of the Law of England, University of Oxford and senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford at the time of his appointment, he was the first Supreme Court judge to be appointed directly from academia.
Thoburn v Sunderland City Council is a UK constitutional and administrative law case, concerning the interaction of EU law and an Act of Parliament. It is important for its recognition of the supremacy of EU law and the basis for that recognition. Though the earlier Factortame had also referred to Parliament's voluntary acceptance of the supremacy of EU law, Thoburn put less stress on the jurisprudence of the ECJ and more on the domestic acceptance of such supremacy; Lord Justice Laws suggested there was a hierarchy of "constitutional statutes" that Parliament could only expressly repeal, and so were immune from implied repeal.
United Kingdom administrative law is part of UK constitutional law that is designed through judicial review to hold executive power and public bodies accountable under the law. A person can apply to the High Court to challenge a public body's decision if they have a "sufficient interest", within three months of the grounds of the cause of action becoming known. By contrast, claims against public bodies in tort or contract are usually limited by the Limitation Act 1980 to a period of 6 years.
Robert John Reed, Baron Reed of Allermuir, is a Scottish judge who has been President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since January 2020. He was the principal judge in the Commercial Court in Scotland before being promoted to the Inner House of the Court of Session in 2008. He is an authority on human rights law in Scotland and elsewhere; he served as one of the UK's ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights. He was also a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong.
The United Kingdom constitutional law concerns the governance of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With the oldest continuous political system on Earth, the British constitution is not contained in a single code but principles have emerged over centuries from common law statute, case law, political conventions and social consensus. In 1215, Magna Carta required the King to call "common counsel" or Parliament, hold courts in a fixed place, guarantee fair trials, guarantee free movement of people, free the church from the state, and it enshrined the rights of "common" people to use the land. After the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution 1688, Parliament won supremacy over the monarch, the church and the courts, and the Bill of Rights 1689 recorded that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". The Act of Union 1707 unified England, Wales and Scotland, while Ireland was joined in 1800, but the Republic of Ireland formally separated between 1916 and 1921 through bitter armed conflict. By the Representation of the People Act 1928, almost every adult man and woman was finally entitled to vote for Parliament. The UK was a founding member of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Council of Europe, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The constitution of the United Kingdom comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.
Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), also known as Advocaten Zonder Grenzen or Lawyers without Borders, is an international NGO, active in the human rights and development sector. Created in 1992 by a group of Belgian lawyers, ASF’s main objective is the realisation of institutions and mechanisms that facilitate access to independent and fair justice systems that ensure legal security and guarantee fundamental human rights for everyone.
Red Lion Chambers is a UK set of barristers' chambers, specialising in criminal law, formerly known as 18 Red Lion Court.
R v Horncastle & Others[2009] UKSC 14 was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom regarding hearsay evidence and the compatibility of UK hearsay law with the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The case represents another stage in the judicial dialogue between the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the higher courts of the United Kingdom about whether it is acceptable to base convictions "solely or to a decisive extent" on evidence made by a witness who is identified but does not appear in court.
Sir Rabinder Singh, PC, styled The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Singh, is a British Court of Appeal judge and President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, formerly a High Court judge of the Queen's Bench Division, a King's Counsel and barrister, formerly a founding member of Matrix Chambers and a legal academic.
Beghal v DPP was a 2015 judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concerning powers of the police in England and Wales.
Coventry v Lawrence was a 2015 judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concerning the compatibility of the Access to Justice Act 1999 with the European Convention on Human Rights.
David William Kinloch Anderson, Baron Anderson of Ipswich, is a British barrister and life peer, who was the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in the United Kingdom between 2011 and 2017. On 8 June 2018 it was announced that he would be introduced to the House of Lords as a cross-bench (non-party) working peer. On the same day he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), for services to national security and civil liberties, in the Queen's 2018 Birthday Honours.
Just for Kids Law is a London-based charity which provides advocacy, legal and youth opportunities services to children and young people, as well as campaigning for wider reform to benefit children and young people living in the United Kingdom. Since its foundation in 2006 by youth justice lawyers Aika Stephenson and Shauneen Lambe, the organisation has received particular renown for its work in strategic litigation, securing significant changes to the law on issues such as the treatment of 17-year-olds in police custody, the eligibility of young migrants for student finance, the law of joint enterprise, and the disclosure of youth cautions and reprimands on DBS certificates. The organisation is also known for its approach to youth advocacy support, with an independent evaluation by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations Charities Evaluation Service noting the "numerous positive benefits" of the charity's casework model.
Aidan O'Neill KC is a Scottish advocate, barrister, and King's Counsel.
