Given that 2005, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) has been facing a major challenge: its prisoner voting case-law is met with hostile criticism, at least in some Contracting Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Magistrates are anticipated to have a range of skills and qualities which enable them to successfully deal with criminal cases. High Court judges who sit in these courts hear circumstances involving prolonged examination of technical concerns, for example, building disputes. Everyone is entitled to legal representation regardless of no matter if the situation is a civil rights case or not. They will sit anyplace inside that circuit hearing mostly civil and family cases.
The vast majority of civil situations tried in court do not have a jury (libel and slander trials are the main exceptions) and the judge hears them on his or her own, deciding them by finding information, applying the relevant law to them – and there could be considerable argument about what that law really is – and then giving a reasoned judgment.
At the Rolls Building in London, there are at the moment eighteen High Court Judges attached to the Chancery Division, in addition to the Chancellor of the High Court. Civil litigation/dispute resolution solicitors concern court proceedings and deal with disclosure and drafting witness statements. An crucial role of the lawyer is to advise their client on the probabilities of accomplishment.
This might include things like the charges of any lawyers, court charges paid out by the parties, costs of specialist witnesses, allowances that may possibly be allowed to litigants who have acted in individual (with no lawyers), earnings lost and travelling and other expenditures incurred by the parties and their witnesses. In civil circumstances the burden of proof is ‘on the balance of probabilities’ which is reduced. The burden of proof in criminal circumstances is ‘beyond all affordable doubt’ – in other words ‘can they be sure’.
Civil cases involve hearings in open court which the public may attend, hearings in the judge’s private space from which the public are excluded, and matters decided by the judge in private but on the basis of the papers alone. Applications for permission to appeal are generally determined by a single Lord Justice, full appeals by two or 3 judges. Examples of contract situations dealt with by Queen’s Bench Division judges are failure to spend for goods and service and breach of contract.
