Explaining our Law and Legal System ... No.4 ... Juries (Updated post)

Involvement of the people in the law:

 

The English legal system is notable for the involvement of individual citizens as either Jurors or Magistrates (Justices of the Peace).

 

The idea of the jury trying a fellow citizen for criminal offences dates back at least to the reign of Henry II (1154 - 1189). The office of Justice of the Peace (JP) is traceable back to 1361.

 

In modern times, juries are to be found mainly in the Crown Court of England and Wales where, along with a judge, they try criminal cases in a process known as trial on indictment. Juries are also used in a limited number of civil cases and at certain inquests in the Coroners Court (see the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 section 7).

Trial of criminal cases

Criminal offences are divided into three types.

Explaining our Law and Legal System ... No.3 ... Judges (Updated post)

 

"Let the judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides: let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne; ..." (Francis Bacon' - 1561-1626 - Of Judicature ).

This post is an overview of the professional judiciary of England and Wales. A further post will look at Justices of the Peace who are regarded as part of the overall judiciary but they are not part of the professional - legally-qualified - judiciary.

Overview of the judiciary - 

Supreme Court of the UK - At the pinnacle of the legal world are the twelve Justices of the Supreme Court.  This court came into being on 1st October 2009 and was created by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 - (CRA 2005) and replaced the House of Lords as the final appellate court.  

Explaining our Law and Legal System ... No.2 ... Courts and Tribunals (Updated post)

Courts and tribunals are the places where the legal system decides the outcome of disputes. This post is concerned with the courts and tribunals of England and Wales.

HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) is an executive agency sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. It is responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts in England and Wales, as well as the reserved unified tribunals across the United Kingdom. HMCTS works, but does not control, the independent judiciary.

Courts range from those with international authority (jurisdiction) ruling on legal matters with international impact to national courts determining disputes between either government (whether central or local) and "persons" or simply disputes between "persons."  

Explaining our Law and Legal System ... No.1 ... Legal Personnel (Updated post)

One aspect of legal blogging is the need for the law to be explained explained to as wide an audience as possible.  In that spirit, this post is one of a series aimed at explaining some aspects of our legal system and law.  The post is, of necessity, an overview.  For those who wish to dig deeper, the various "links" should assist.  

This post is an update of a post written in June 2011 during the early days of this blog. There was a previous update in June 2020.

The legal profession 

So, where to begin?  When the law is mentioned in general conversation, people will think of "lawyers" and "courts."  So let's start with "lawyers" or "the legal profession."

Article 8 and Parliamentary Privilege

In Green v United Kingdom (Application 22077/19) the European Court of Human Rights (4th section)

Held that there was no violation of the right to respect for private life.

The case concerned the question of whether States have a duty to take measures to prevent parliamentary privilege being used to circumvent a court injunction. In 2018 the applicant, a well-known businessman, was granted an interim injunction against the Telegraph group to prevent it from identifying him as the subject of allegations of sexual harassment and bullying made by former employees. Invoking parliamentary privilege, a member of the House of Lords took the floor of the House after a debate and identified the applicant as the subject of the allegations, despite the interim injunction.

The Court found that it should be left to the respondent State, and Parliament in particular, to decide on the controls required to prevent parliamentary members from revealing information subject to privacy injunctions. To find otherwise would run contrary to the principle of the autonomy of Parliament, which had already considered and rejected the need for further controls.

• Press release
• ECHR-KS: Right to respect for private and family life
• ECHR-KS: Right to a fair trial (civil)

When is a pre-sentence report required? A note .....

1 April 2025 - Secretary of State's statement in the House of Commons 

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-Sentence Reports) Bill as introduced by the Secretary of State

There has been a recent "difference of view" between the Sentencing Council and the Secretary of State for Justice about when a pre-sentence report is required. The detail is set out in the Secretary of State's statement and legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg has taken a longer look at the issue. For those reasons I do not intend to carry out a detailed analysis here. 

34 years ago, in the Criminal Justice Act 1991, Parliament effectively made pre-sentence reports (PSR) almost mandatory in cases where the sentencing court was considering either a custodial sentence or a community sentence.

I was, and remain, of the view that this generally made good sense and it applied to all offenders regardless of either their background or personal characteristics.

The present law is set out in the Sentencing Act 2020 section 30 and "guidance" exists in Sentencing Council guidelines as well as Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) case law. 

Sentencing Council Guidance - as proposed - not yet in effect

Read the 31 March statement from the Council. 

European Court of Human Rights ~ Adoption ~ Right to family life

25 March 2025 - The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section)  - N.S. v United Kingdom (Application 38134/20)

The court's judgment is available here and a summary from the court's website follows .....