Britain: An official handbook > 1966

86
Appellate Courts
Civil
Proceedings
BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
he does not sit in any Division); he is also nominally head of the Chancery
Division, of which the Master of the Rolls1 is another nominal member; there
is a President for the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division; and the Lord
Chief Justice of England presides over the Queen’s Bench E)ivision. For the
hearing of cases at first instance, High Court judges sit singly. Appellate
jurisdiction is exercised either by divisional courts consisting of three (or
sometimes two) judges, sitting in one of the three Divisions of the High Court
or, in some cases, by a single judge.
Nearly all appeals from magistrates’ courts, ministerial decisions and the
decisions of judges sitting in Chambers2 are heard in the first instance in the
appropriate divisional court of the High Court,3 but all the more important
appeals in civil actions come before the Court of Appeal, which is part of
the Supreme Court of Judicature, and some (with leave of the Court of Appeal
or of the House of Lords) before the House of Lords, which is the ultimate
court of appeal in civil cases in the whole United Kingdom.
The Court of Appeal hears appeals from the High Court, the county courts
and assizes in civil cases. The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the
President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, and most of the
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary are members of the court, but its effective head
is the Master of the Rolls, who is assisted by nine Lord Justices of Appeal;
the Court sits in divisions, each with three judges.
The judges in the House of Lords are the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary,
who must have a quorum of three, but often sit as a group of five, and some¬
times of seven. Lay peers may not attend the hearing of appeals (which
normally takes place in a committee room and not in the legislative chamber),
but peers who hold or have held high judicial office may sit. The president
is the Lord Chancellor.
In England and Wales civil proceedings are instituted by the aggrieved
person; no preliminary inquiry as to the authenticity of the grievance is
required. The most common form of proceedings is an action commenced
by a writ served on the defendant by the plaintiff, which notifies the defendant
that the plaintiff has a claim on him and states the nature of the claim. If the
defendant intends to contest the claim, he ‘enters an appearance by informing
the court to this effect and documents setting out the precise question in
dispute (the pleadings) are then delivered to the court.
Because civil proceedings are a private matter, they can at any time be
abandoned or compromised without leave of the court4 and, in fact, in the
great majority of cases, the parties to a dispute are able to settle their differences
through their solicitors before the stage of actual trial is reached. Actions that
are brought to court are usually tried by a judge without a jury, except in cases
involving claims for defamation, false imprisonment, unlawful arrest, seduction,
or breach of promise to marry, when either party may insist on trial by jury,
or in a case of fraud, when the person charged may claim this right In
trials where a jury is present, it is responsible for deciding questions of fact
1 Originally keeper of the records and assistant to the Lord Chancellor, the Master of
the Rolls has for centuries held high judicial office.
2 Decisions reached during proceedings which, under the rules of the court, do not
require to be heard in court. _ ;
3 Quarter sessions have appellate jurisdiction in respect of some magistrates courts
4 Matrimonial causes are exceptional in that all cases (whether defended or undefended)
must come before a judge.