The Senior Courts Act 1981 (c. 54), originally named the Supreme Court Act 1981, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Act prescribes the structure and jurisdictions of the Senior Courts of England and Wales (previously known as the "Superior Courts"). These Senior Courts comprise: the Court of Appeal, High Court of Justice, the Employment Appeal Tribunal, and the Crown Court.
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 established a new Supreme Court which, on 1 October 2009, replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.
To avoid confusion, the Supreme Court Act 1981 was renamed the Senior Courts Act 1981, and all statutory references to the Supreme Court of England and Wales were amended to refer to the Senior Courts of England and Wales. The former term "Supreme Court" did not mean the 2009 Supreme Court (which, of course, did not exist in 1981), but was shorthand for the "Supreme Court of England and Wales", called before 1981 the "Supreme Court of Judicature", which comprised the "Superior Courts" (as opposed to the "Inferior Courts").
The following directions have been given pursuant to section 75(1) by the Lord Chief Justice. They are titled "Classification of the business of the Crown Court and allocation to Crown Court centres":
This section replaced section 99 of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925 and section 15 of the Courts Act 1971. [1]
Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, for many centuries it had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers and for impeachments, and as a court of last resort in the United Kingdom and prior, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of England.
The Court of Appeal is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Court of Appeal was created in 1875, and today comprises 39 Lord Justices of Appeal and Lady Justices of Appeal.
In law, certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. Certiorari comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review. The term is Latin for "to be made more certain", and comes from the opening line of such writs, which traditionally began with the Latin words "Certiorari volumus...".
The courts of England and Wales, supported administratively by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales.
In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general jurisdiction over civil and criminal legal cases. A superior court is "superior" in relation to a court with limited jurisdiction, which is restricted to civil cases involving monetary amounts with a specific limit, or criminal cases involving offenses of a less serious nature. A superior court may hear appeals from lower courts. For courts of general jurisdiction in civil law system, see ordinary court.
The Courts Act 1971 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the purpose of which was to reform and modernise the courts system of England and Wales.
Puisne judge and puisne justice are terms for an ordinary judge or a judge of lesser rank of a particular court. The term comes from a combination of the two French words, puis, "since, later" + né, and "born", which have been combined as French: puisné or puîné; meaning "junior".
Assault occasioning grievous bodily harm is a term used in English criminal law to describe the severest forms of battery. It refers to two offences that are created by sections 18 and 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The distinction between these two sections is the requirement of specific intent for section 18; the offence under section 18 is variously referred to as "wounding with intent" or "causing grievous bodily harm with intent", whereas the offence under section 20 is variously referred to as "unlawful wounding", "malicious wounding" or "inflicting grievous bodily harm".
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.
The courts of Northern Ireland are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in Northern Ireland: they are constituted and governed by the law of Northern Ireland.
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm is a statutory offence of aggravated assault in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Hong Kong and the Solomon Islands. It has been abolished in the Republic of Ireland and in South Australia, but replaced with a similar offence.
A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord Justice of Appeal is the second highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. Despite the title, and unlike the former Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, they are not peers.
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
The Federal Court of Malaysia is the highest court and the final appellate court in Malaysia. It is housed in the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya. The court was established during Malaya's independence in 1957 and received its current name in 1994.
A full court is a court of law sitting with a greater than normal number of judges. For a court which is usually presided over by one judge, a full court has three or more judges; for a court which, like many appellate courts, normally sits as a bench of three judges, a full court has a bench of five judges.
The Chancery Amendment Act 1858 also known as Lord Cairns' Act after Sir Hugh Cairns, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allowed the English Court of Chancery, the Irish Chancery and the Chancery Court of the County Palatine of Lancaster to award damages, in addition to their previous function of awarding injunctions and specific performance. The Act also made several procedural changes to the Chancery courts, most notably allowing them to call a jury, and allowed the Lord Chancellor to amend the practice regulations of the courts. By allowing the Chancery courts to award damages it narrowed the gap between the common law and equity courts and accelerated the passing of the Judicature Act 1873, and for that reason has been described by Ernest Pollock as "prophetic".
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC for legal citation purposes.
Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.
(3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.
The Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that brought about a major reorganisation of the superior courts in Ireland. It created a Supreme Court of Judicature, comprising the High Court of Justice in Ireland and the Court of Appeal in Ireland. It mirrored in Ireland the changes which the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 had made in the courts of England and Wales.
Certain former courts of England and Wales have been abolished or merged into or with other courts, and certain other courts of England and Wales have fallen into disuse.
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