Principal Powers available to the courts in England & Wales Essay

Principal Powers available to the courts in England & Wales - Essay Example The local courts were manned over by one of the lord’s stewards or the lord himself. The Curia Regis, which is the King’s court, was presided by the king himself. It is not a comfortable experience to go on trial in a Welsh and English courts. This is better than the ordeal trial, which was used until the end of 12th century in determining innocence or guilt in criminal cases. Under the system of ordeal, the accused were forced to pick up a red-hot iron, to remove a stone from a cauldron of boiling water, and any other punishment, which is equally painful and dangerous. After this punishment, if the hand begins to heal in three days he is considered having God in his/her side and thereby proving that he/she is innocent. The number of recorded verdicts in this system is not known to anyone. Another popular and extreme sense of ordeal system is water where one ties an individual and throws into the water body. If he/she sinks, it shows that he/she is innocent. In 1406, th e judicial view expressed that the King has transferred all his powers to the courts. The English civil war of 1642-51 was fought between the rights of the King and the rights of the parliament. The parliament won the battle, and it became the supreme legal authority in the country. This supremacy of the parliament is a cornerstone of the constitution. This meant that legally, parliament could pass any law it wishes though there are some limitations to this power. The high court of justice is an amalgamation between the court of chancery and existing courts of common law. Because United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, justice is administered in the name of the crown (Riches & Allen, 2011, p.152). There is a judicial system where the high court ensures that governments, lower courts and public bodies are operating within the law. Judicial review is only interested with the legality of decision-making and not concerned with the merits of the decision. Some courts have appellate jurisdiction. This means that they decide their appeals from courts, which are below them in their hierarchy of courts. This is the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom, which replaced appellate committee in the House of Lords. The high court and the court of appeal are among those, which are below in the hierarchy. The court of appeal has criminal and civil division. The crown court is mandated to hear certain appeals, which are from the magistrate’s courts (Probert 2011). There is a distanced system of criminal courts. These are the magistrates’ courts and the crown courts of Wales and England. The crown courts are dated back from courts act of 1971, which replaced and abolished various courts including Quarter and Assizes sessions and many other local courts like the court of Chancery. Tribunals deal with many specialist matters though there might be some appeals to the high court or a higher tribunal. Tribunal courts and enforcement Act of 2007 has changed tribunal structure through radical reforms. Non-lawyers are used significantly in the system; they include Magistrates, tribunal members, and Jurors. The speech of Abdroikof 2007 emphasized the importance of the jury. In certain situations, there is a provision of the Criminal Justice of 2003 Act for non-jury trials (Grubin 1996). In most tribunals and courts, the