English Legal System – Some Terminologies

Hi

First things first – have you tried googling any of these expressions to see what that has to say? Maybe Wikipedia would help too.

I’ll give you brief answers to most of your questions but will need to get back to you on a couple

Codification – putting into statute an area of law, typically based on common law, for the first time. examples would include the Partnership Act of 1890 and the Sale of Goods Act of 1872

Consolidation is where a number of “bits” of statute are consolidated intoone which encompasses the previous bits. An example was the Companies Act of 1985 which consolidated the Companies Acts of 1948, 1967, 1976, 1980, as well as 4 other bits relating to company law from other statutes

Balance of probabilities is literally what it says. A judge is hearing a complaint from a plaintiff and that is being denied and defended by the other side. Well, they can’t both be correct and maybe there could be some exaggeration /embellishment by one or both sides. So the judge has to decide whether the plaintiff or the defendent is more likely to be giving the full story – the balance of probabilities.

Hybrid – I’ll get back to you

Verbatim text – again literally it’s a word for word record of what a judge as said during the summing up of a case. the significance is that later judges in similar cases may be bound by the earlier case decision. But the judge doesn’t sit there and say “…and my next three sentences are the ratio decidendi of my decision whereas all the rest is merely obiter” He / she simply reads his / her summary and it’s for later barristers to persuade later judges which bit of the earlier judge’s summary should be viewed as ratio and therefore also which bits are obiter and not binding.

That paragraph also answers your next question

High Court is both civil and criminal – two divisions

Appelate side of the High Court hears appeals from Crown Courts ( criminal ) and County Courts ( civil ) the F4 syllabus pretty much leaves criminal law at this point with the obvious exceptions of Insider Dealing, Money Laundering and bits of law relating to directors

The Supreme Court hears appeals from lower courts ( Court of Appeal and, by the process of leap-frogging, the High Court )

triable either way – I’ll get back to you.

Maybe you could try google to find about Hybrids and Triable either way

Where a high court judge has based a decision based upon precedent from the Court of Appeal, there’s no point in appealing that decision to the Court of Appeal, because they are also bound by Court of Appeal earlier decisions. So the High Court judge will give the appelant freedom to appeal to the Supreme Court, thereby leap-frogging over the Court of Appeal

The following is what I found by putting “leap frog procedure” into my search engine. Is there any reason why you could not have done the same?

🙂 TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS (THE LEAPFROG PROCEDURE)

There is a procedure for missing out, or “leapfrogging”, the Court of Appeal so as to enable an appeal to be taken from the High Court direct to the House of Lords (ss12-15 Administration of Justice Act 1969). The procedure is little used. The conditions which must be satisfied before such a direct appeal can be taken are that:

(a) the trial judge has granted a certificate of satisfaction, and
(b) the House of Lords has given leave to appeal.

A trial judge can only grant a certificate if all the parties consent and the case involves a point of law of general public importance which is either concerned wholly or mainly with the construction of a statute or of a statutory instrument, or is one where the trial judge is bound by a previous decision of the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords. The granting of a certificate by the trial judge is discretionary. No appeal is possible against the granting or refusal of a certificate.

Appeals direct from the High Court to the House of Lords are rare.