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COURT (from the O. Fr. court, Late La...
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See also:COURT (from the O. Fr. court, See also:Late See also:Lat. cortis, See also:curtis, a popular See also:form of class. Lat. cohors, gen. cohortis; the mod. Fr. form tour is due to the See also:influence of the Lat. See also:curia, the word used in See also:medieval documents to translate " court " in the feudal sense)
, a word originally denoting an enclosed See also:place, and so surviving in its architectural sense (courtyard, &c.), but chiefly used as a See also:general See also:term for judicial tribunals and in the See also:special sense of the See also:household of the See also:
The courts exercising See also:jurisdiction in See also:England are divided by certain features which may here be briefly indicated
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We may distinguish between (I) See also:superior and inferior courts
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The former are the courts of common law and the court of chancery, now High Court of Justice
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The latter are the See also:local or See also:district courts, county courts, &c
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(2) Courts of See also:record and courts not of record
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" A court of record is one whereof the acts and judicial proceedings are enrolled for a perpetual memory and testimony, which rolls are called the records of the court, and are of such high and supereminent authority that their truth is not to be called in question
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For it is a settled See also:rule and See also:maxim that nothing shall be averred against a record, nor shall any plea or even See also:proof be admitted to the contrary
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And if the existence of the record shall be denied it shall be tried by nothing but itself; that is, upon See also:bare inspection whether there be any such record or no; else there would be no end of disputes
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All courts of record are the courts of the See also:sovereign in right of the crown and royal dignity, and therefore any court of record has authority to See also:fine and imprison for contempt of its authority" (See also:Stephen's See also:Black-See also: Of the superior courts, the High Court of Justice in its various divisions is a court of first instance . Over it is the court of appeal, and over that again the See also:House of Lords . The High Court of Justice is (through divisional courts) a court of appeal for inferior courts . (5) There is a special class of local courts, which do not appear to fall within the description of either superior or inferior courts.' Some, while administering the See also:ordinary municipal law, have or had jurisdiction exclusive of their superior courts; such were the common pleas of See also:Durham and See also:Lancaster . Others have concurrent jurisdiction with the superior courts; such are the See also:lord See also:mayor's court of See also:London, the passage court of See also:Liverpool, &c . The See also:distribution of judicial business among the various courts of law in England may be exhibited as follows . Criminal Courts.—(r) The lowest is that of the justice of the See also:peace, sitting in See also:petty sessions of two or more, to determine in a See also:summary way certain specified See also:minor offences . In populous districts, such as London, See also:Manchester, &c., stipendiary magistrates are appointed, generally with enlarged See also:powers . Besides punishing by summary conviction, justices may commit prisoners for trial at the assizes . (2) The justices in See also:quarter sessions are commissioned to determine felonies and other offences . An act of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c . 38) contains a See also:list of offences not triable at quarter sessions—See also:treason, See also:murder, See also:forgery, See also:bigamy, &c . (see QUARTER SESSIONS, COURT or) . The corresponding court in a See also:borough is presided over by a See also:recorder . (3) The more serious offences are reserved for the judges of the superior courts sitting under a See also:commission of oyer and terminer or See also:gaol delivery for each county . The See also:assize courts, as they are called, sit in general in each county twice a See also:year, following the See also:division of circuits; but additional assizes are also held under acts of 1876 and 1877, which permit several counties to be See also:united together for that purpose (see CIRCUIT) . London, which occupies an exceptional position in all matters of judicature, has a high criminal court of its own, established by the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, under the name of the central criminal court . Its judges usually present are a See also:rota selected from the superior judges of common law, the recorder, common See also:serjeant, and the judge of the See also:City of London court .2 The criminal appeal court, to which all persons convicted on See also:indictment may appeal, superseded in 1908 (by the Criminal Appeal Act 1907) the court for crown cases reserved, to which any question of law arising on the trial of a prisoner 2 The sittings are held in the court-house in the Old See also:Bailey . The old sessions house was destroyed in the See also:Gordon riots of 1780 . The See also:building erected in its place, although enlarged from See also:time to time, was very incommodious, and a new structure, occupying the site of Newgate See also:Prison, which was pulled down for the purpose, was completed in 1907 . could after conviction be remitted by the judge in his discretion . To the criminal appeal court there is an appeal both on questions of fact and of law (see APPEAL) . Civil Courts.—In certain special cases, civil claims of small importance may be brought before justices or stipendiaries . Otherwise, and excepting the special and See also:peculiar jurisdictions above mentioned, the civil business of England and See also:Wales may be said to be divided between the county courts (taking small cases) and the High Court of Justice (taking all others) . 
The effect of the Judicature Acts on the constitution of the superior courts may be briefly stated . There is now one Supreme Court of Judicature, consisting of two permanent divisions called the High Court of Justice and the court of appeal . The former takes the jurisdiction of the court of chancery, the three common law courts, the courts of See also:admiralty, See also:probate, and See also:divorce, the courts of pleas at Lancaster and Durham, and the courts created by commissions of assize, oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery . The latter takes the jurisdiction of the court of appeal in chancery (including chancery of Lancaster), the court of the lord See also:warden of the See also:stannaries, and of the See also:exchequer chamber, and the appellate jurisdiction in admiralty and See also:heresy matters of the judicial See also:committee; and power is given to the sovereign to See also:transfer the remaining jurisdiction of that court to the court of appeal . By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 the House of Lords is enabled to sit for the hearing of appeals from the English court of appeal and the Scottish and Irish courts during the See also:prorogation and See also:dissolution of parliament . The lords of appeal, of whom three must be present, are the lord See also:chancellor, the lords of appeal in ordinary, and peers who have held " high judicial See also:office " in See also:Great See also:Britain or See also:Ireland . The lords in ordinary are an innovation in the constitution of the House . They hold the See also:rank of See also:baron for See also:life only, have a right to sit and See also:vote in the House during See also:tenure of office only, and a See also:salary of 6000 per annum . There are also many obsolete or decayed courts, of which the most noticeable are dealt with under their individual headings, as COURT BARON, COURT LEET, &C . The See also:history of English courts affords a remarkable See also:illustration of the continuity that characterizes English institutions . It might perhaps be too much to say that all the courts now sitting in England may be traced back to a common origin, but at any See also:rate the higher courts are all offshoots from the same See also:original judicature . Leaving out of See also:account the local courts, we find the higher jurisdiction after the See also:Norman See also:Conquest concentrated along with all other public functions in the king and council .
The first sign of a separation of the judicial from the other powers of this body is found in the recognition of a See also:Curia Regis, which may be described as the king's council, or a portion of it, charged specially with the management of judicial and See also:revenue business
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In relation to the revenue it became the exchequer, under which name a See also:separate court See also:grew up whose special See also: They hold office during See also:good behaviour, i.e. are removable only by See also:impeachment, thus having a tenure even more secure than that of English judges, The court sits at See also:Washington from See also:October to See also:July in every year . The sessions of the court are held in the Capitol . A rule requiring the presence of six judges to pronounce a decision prevents the division of the court into two or more benches; and while this secures a thorough See also:consideration of every See also:case, it also retards the despatch of business . Every case is discussed twice by the whole body, once to ascertain the view of the See also:majority, which is then directed to be set forth in a written See also:opinion; then again, when the written opinion, prepared by one of the judges, is submitted for See also:criticism and See also:adoption by the court as its judgment . The other Federal courts have been created by See also:Congress under a power in the Constitution to establish " inferior courts." The circuit courts consist of twenty-nine circuit judges, acting in nine judicial circuits, while to each circuit there is also allotted one of the justices of the Supreme Court . Circuit courts of appeals, established to relieve the Supreme Court, consist of three judges (two forming a See also:quorum), and are made up of the circuit and district judges of each circuit and the Supreme Court justice assigned to the circuit . Some cases may, however, be appealed to the Supreme Court from the circuit court of appeals, and others directly from the See also:lower courts . The district courts number (1909) ninety, in most cases having a single justice . There is also a special tribunal called the court of claims, which deals with the claims of private persons against the Federal government . It is not strictly a See also:part of the general judicial system, but is a creation of Congress designed to relieve that body of a part of its own labours . The jurisdiction of the Federal courts extends only to those cases in which the Constitution makes Federal law applicable . All other cases are See also:left to the state courts, from which there is no appeal to the Federal courts, unless where some specific point arises which is affected by the Federal Constitution or a Federal law . The classes of cases dealt with by the Federal courts are as follows: Cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and See also:treaties made under their authority; 2 . Cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; 3 . Cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; 4 . Controversies to which the United States shall be a party; 5 . Controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state or the citizens thereof and See also:foreign states, citizens or subjects (Const., See also:Art . III., § 2) . Part of this jurisdiction has, however, been withdrawn by the See also:eleventh See also:Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that " the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state." The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is original in cases affecting ambassadors, and wherever a state is a party; in other cases it is appellate . In some matters the jurisdiction of the Federal eourts is exclusive; in others it is concurrent with that of the state courts . As it frequently happens that cases come before state courts in which questions of Federal law arise, a See also:provision has been made whereby due respect for the latter is secured by giving the party to a suit who relies upon Federal law, and whose contention is overruled by a state court, the right of having the suit removed to a Federal court . The Judiciary Act of 1789 (as amended by subsequent legislation) provides for the removal to the Supreme Court of the United States of " a final judgment or See also:decree in any suit rendered in the highest court of a state in which a decision could be had, where is See also:drawn in question, the validity of a treaty or See also:statute of, or an authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favour of their validity; or where any See also:title, right, See also:privilege or See also:immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission. held, or authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or immunity specially set up or claimed by either party under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission or authority." If the decision of the state court is in favour of the right claimed under Federal law or against the validity or applicability of the state law set up, there is no ground for removal, because the applicability or authority of Federal law in the particular case could receive no further See also:protection from a Federal court than has in fact been given by the state court . The power exercised by the Supreme Court in declaring statutes of Congress or of state legislatures (or acts of the Executive) to be invalid because inconsistent with the Federal Constitution, has been deemed by many Europeans a peculiar and striking feature of the See also:American system . There is, however, nothing novel or mysterious about it . As the Federal Constitution, which emanates directly from the See also:people, is the supreme law of the See also:land everywhere, any statute passed by any lower authority (whether the Federal Congress or a state legislature), which contravenes the Constitution, must necessarily be invalid in point of law, just as in the United See also:Kingdom a railway by-law which contravened an act of parliament would be invalid . Now, the functions of judicial tribunals—of all courts alike, whether Federal or state, whether superior or inferior—is to interpret the law, and if any tribunal finds a Congressional statute or state statute inconsistent with the Constitution, the tribunal is obliged to hold such statute invalid . A tribunal does this not because it has any right or power of its own in the See also:matter, but because the people have, in enacting the Constitution as a supreme law, declared that all other laws inconsistent with it are ipso jure void . When a tribunal has ascertained that an inferior law is thus inconsistent, that inferior law is therewith, so far as inconsistent, to be deemed void . The tribunal does not enter any conflict with the Legislature or Executive . All it does is to declare that a conflict exists between two laws of different degrees of authority, whence it necessarily follows that the weaker law is See also:extinct . This See also:duty of See also:interpretation belongs to all tribunals, but as constitutional cases are, if originating in a lower court, usually carried by appeal to the Supreme Court, men have grown accustomed to talk of the Supreme Court as in a special sense the See also:guardian of the Constitution . The Federal courts never deliver an opinion on any constitutional question unless or until that question is brought before them in the See also:form of a lawsuit . A judgment of the Supreme Court is only a judgment on the particular case before it, and does not prevent a similar question being raised again in another lawsuit, though of course this seldom happens, because it may be assumed that the court will adhere to its former opinion . There have, however, been instances in which the court has virtually changed its view on a constitutional question, and it is understood to be entitled so to do . |
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