Civil Court Hierarchy and Appeal System Flashcards
(11 cards)
What is meant by ‘jurisdiction’ in the context of the civil court system?
Jurisdiction means the nature and extent of a court’s powers, which involves three aspects:
- Geographical location
- Subject matter
- Financial value
Give an overview of the County Court’s work and how cases are allocated
Located in towns and cities (not attached to a county)
They deal with a wide range of work
- Debt recovery and money claims, PI claims, property disputes and more
Cases divided into tracks:
- Less than £10,000 – Small Claims Track
- £10,000-£25,000 – Fast Track
- £25,000-£100,000 – Intermediate Track
- Over £100,000 – Multi-track
May take place in High Court if over £100,000
What is the typical process for a civil case?
- Pre-action stage – C will send a letter before claim to D, outlining the claim
- Commencement – issue and serve a claim form
- Defending the claim – D acknowledges and contests the claim
- Allocation – allocated to a track
- Directions – sets out timetable of steps to trial
- Hearing – trial before judge
- Judgment – judge’s decision
- Enforcement – enforce judgment to recover sums ordered by the judge
How do appeals from the County Court work?
Appeals from a district judge goes to a circuit judge of the County Court
Appeals from a circuit judge go to the High Court
Permission is required to appeal a decision – unsuccessful party usually asks right away
- Can apply for permission from the court where you wish the appeal to be heard; have 21 days to file a notice from date of judgment
- There is a fee for applying to appeal
No new evidence can be introduced at the appeal stage
- As such, you should only appeal if you have a real change of success or some other strong reason for appeal to be heard
CPR state that an appeal will only be allowed if the decision of the lower court is wrong or unjust
Give an overview of the High Court’s work and how cases are allocated?
Deals with high value cases, so equivalent to multi-track in County Court
Has three divisions and every division has a President (senior judge)
1) King’s Bench Division
- Common law arm of the High Court
- Deals with contractual and tort matters
- Some special courts within this, like the Commercial Court (mercantile and banking cases, heavyweight business and finance cases), Admiralty Court (shipping cases), Administrative Court (judicial review) and Technology and Construction Court
2) Chancery Division
- IP (Patents Court where claim value is over £500k), revenue and tax cases, mortgages, wills and trusts cases
3) Family Division
- Deals with protection of children, divorce, violence remedies and other petitions
How do appeals from the High Court work?
1) Appeals from HC go to Court of Appeal, Civil Decision
- Decisions by a majority so an odd number of judges will be on the CoA panel (usually three)
2) Permission required to appeal – possible to appeal something that has been appealed
- Permission won’t be given unless CoA believes the appeal would have a real prospect of success and (raises an important point of principle or practice) or some other compelling reason
- Brackets above only applies to something already appealed
3) Procedure – apply for permission within 21 days of the original decision
- Notice must be served on other party to litigation within 7 days of filing notice above
- Respondent can then file and serve their own notice in 14 days
- Court will need to see the appellant’s grounds of appeal and a skeleton argument
4) Can leapfrog the CoA to appeal to SC where there is an urgent need to obtain authoritative interpretation of the matter in dispute
What is a right to audience?
You have a right to audience in open court if you are a properly regulated individual (usually a solicitor or barrister)
Exercise of a right of audience is a reserved legal activity
- Can only be carried out if authorised or exempt
- A litigant in person can be an exempt person by being granted a one-off right of audience in their case
Give an overview of tribunals in the civil court system
Panel of 3 people; 1 legally qualified and other 2 are not usually
First Tier Tribunal hears appeals against decisions by government departments or agencies
- Considers matters such as social entitlement, tax, property, immigration
Upper Tribunal reviews and decides appeals from the First Tier
Can make a further appeal to Court of Appeal – file notice within 28 days
What appeals do the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court hear?
CoA hears appeals from High Court, Family Court and tribunals
SC hears appeals from CoA – usually 5 on a panel, but may be 3 or even 9
- Can only appeal to SC with permission and must do so within 28 days of CoA decision
- To appeal, the matter must raise an arguable point of law of general public importance
Give an overview of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
- 27 Commonwealth countries, overseas territories and crown dependencies use the JCPC as their final chance of justice where there is disagreement over decisions by local courts
- Privy Council has government ministers, senior opposition politicians and judges – generally serves an honorary role
- The JCPC has a genuine legal role – membership is the same as SC + supplementary members
- JCPC will hear appeals from disciplinary committees of regulatory bodies within the UK, disqualification from House of Commons and appeals from Commonwealth countries
- Decisions are persuasive and binding on other courts
How do you bring a case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council?
To bring a case:
- In civil matters, the Court granting leave to appeal must be satisfied that the case raises a point of general public importance
- In criminal matters, the case must raise questions of great and general importance, or there must have been some grave violation of principles of natural justice.
