Civil Courts

Question 1

How many civil courts are in the English legal system?

Answer 1

200

Question 2

What do county courts deal with?

Answer 2

contract and tort cases
Recovery of land cases (evictions)
Disputes over partnerships
Dispute over partnership, trust and inheritance up to a value of £350,000.

Question 3

Only a small number of what is tried at the county courts?

Answer 3

Fast track
Multi-track
Small claims

Question 4

What three divisions are seen in the high court.

Answer 4

Queen’s bench
Chancery division
Family division

Question 5

What is the queens bench about?

Answer 5

Over 70 judges
Deals with contract and tort cases with claims over £100,000
A single judge presides and occasionally there can be a jury of 12 in cases of fraud, libel, slander, malicious prosecution or false imprisonment.

Question 6

What is the Chancer division all about?

Answer 6

18 judges
Deals with insolvency cases, enforcement of mortgages, copyright and patent cases intellectual property rights.
There is a special companies court that deals with winding up companies
A single judge presides.

Question 7

What is the Family division all about?

Answer 7

19 judges
Deals with family cases where there might be disputes about which country’s laws apply or family matters under The Hague convention
It also deals with applications for Jane as corpus where a child’s liberty is involved.

Question 8

What were some of the successes of the Woolf reforms?

Answer 8

Cooperation between parties is improving
Increased rate of settlement in cases
Judges now taking active role in managing cases.
Less delay, although this is still a problem in the high court