The Police

Jury

Judges

Barristers

There are about 8,000 barristers in independent practice in England and Wales and they are controlled by their own professional body called the General Council of the Bar. To become a barrister it is usual to start by obtaining a law degree; those with a degree in another subject will have to do one-year course on law and pass the Common Professional Examination. In order to go on to the next stage of training it is necessary to join an Inn of Court and be accepted on the Bar’s Vocational Training Course which lasts one academic year. It has become increasingly difficult to obtain a place on this Training Course and the method of selecting students has been criticised. Prior to 1994 it was necessary to have at least a 2(I) pass at degree level. In 1994 the procedure was changed; the grades obtained at A level became more important and critical reasoning tests were introduced. One result of the changes was that students with first class degrees were being refused places and there were many successful appeals against the refusal of a place. The Vocational Training Course concentrates on practical skills, particularly advocacy, and students learn to draft legal documents and present cases in court. As with solicitors there is a financial problem for students doing the Vocational Course since Local Education Authorities rarely give a grant for this stage of training. Joining an Inn of Court and attending there to dine or for weekend courses is compulsory but students may choose which of the four Inns – Lincoln’s Inn, the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple and Gray’s Inn – they wish to join.

Judges as a group are also called the judiciary. There are many different levels of judge although the main division is into inferior and superior judges. This may sound an odd way of referring to judges but it reflects the different levels of court in which they sit. Inferior judges include: stipendiary magistrates, district judges, recorders, circuit judges. Superior judges are: the puisne judges who sit in the High Court, the Lords Justices of Appeal in the Court of Appeal, the Law Lords in the House of Lords. To become a judge at any level it is necessary to be either a barrister or a solicitor. The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 made changes basing qualifications on certificates of advocacy and rights of audience in the courts. In other words, a barrister or solicitor must have been qualified to be an advocate in the court to which he is appointed as a judge. The Courts and Legal Services Act also introduced a type of career structure for judges, with the possibility of being promoted from a lower judicial office to the next one up on the ladder. Prior to the Act it was very rare for a judge to be promoted from one court to a higher court except from the High Court to the Court of Appeal and it was impossible for solicitors to progress further than a circuit judgeship. No matter how good a judge a solicitor was he could not be appointed as a High Court judge; this was clearly wrong as the best judges should be able to be promoted. The first High Court judge to come from solicitor circuit judges was Sir Michael Sachs, who was appointed in 1993.

A jury consists of twelve people (jurors’), who are ordinary people chosen at random from the Electoral Register (the list of people who can vote in elections). The jury listen to the evidence given in court in certain criminal cases and decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. If the person is found guilty, the punishment is passed by the presiding judge. Juries are rarely used in civil cases.

To be eligible for jury service a person must:

- be aged between 18 and 70

- be registered to vote on the electoral register

- have lived in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands or Isle of Man for at least five years since reaching the age of 13.

These qualifications are set out in the Juries Act 1974, as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1988. However some people, who qualify under the criteria above, are still not allowed to serve on a jury, because they are disqualified or ineligible for some other reason.

Some criminal convictions will disqualify you from serving on a jury, the length of time of the disqualification depending on the sentence given. In addition the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 has disqualified those on bail from sitting as jurors.

Those who are ineligible include:

- people suffering from certain mental illnesses

- people whose occupations are concerned with the administration of justice or who have been so employed within the last 10 years; this is a wide group as it includes judges, court clerks, barristers, solicitors and police

- priests, monks and nuns

Apart from these groups there are also people who have the right to refuse to do jury service; they are ‘excusable as of right’. This group includes:

- Members of Parliament

- those serving in the armed forces

- doctors, nurses and pharmacists

- anyone aged 65 to 70

- anyone who has done jury service within the last two years

The court has an official who is responsible for sending out summons calling people for jury service. This official will have all the electoral registers for the area and he will select names from these in a random manner. In some areas a computer is used to select people’s names, in other areas the court official will look at the registers and choose names at random. Once the names have been chosen, those people are sent jury summons telling them to come to the court on a certain date. The normal length of jury service is two weeks, though jurors are warned that some trials may last longer. More people than are needed are summoned as the court official will not know who is disqualified, ineligible or excusable as of right. If someone is within one of these categories he or she has to declare it and anyone who is disqualified can be fined up to £5,000 for failing to declare that disqualification.

There will also be other people who do not want to do jury service and they have to explain their reasons in writing to the court. If they have a sufficiently good reason, they will be excused from doing jury service on that occasion, but may have to do it in the future. Good reasons include being too ill to go to court, business appointments, having a holiday booked or even having an examination to take. This sort of excusal is called a discretionary excusal, since it is up to the court to decide whether that person should be excused or not. If a person is not excused he must attend court on the date given on the summons or risk being fined for failing to do so. The maximum fine for non-attendance is £1,000.

Each of Britain’s fifty-two police forces is responsible for law enforcement in its own area. In addition there are various national and regional connections (for example, in areas of training or the transfer of criminal records), and local forces cooperate with each other. Some special services, such as the Fraud Squad (who investigate financial crimes), are available to any local force in England and Wales. In general, however, the local police forces work independently under their own Chief Constables. Each force is maintained by a local police authority. The exception is London, where the Metropolitan Police are responsible to the Home Secretary.

Police duties cover a wide range of activities, from traffic control to more specialised departments such as river police. Each independent force has a uniformed branch and a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) with detectives in plain clothes. In addition the police authorities in England and Wales employ 40,000 civilians and nearly 5,000 traffic wardens.

Britain has relatively few police – approximately one policeman for every 400 people – and traditionally they are armed only with truncheons except in special circumstances. However, recent years have seen some major changes in police policy in response to industrial disputes and inner city violence in Great Britain. The situation in Northern Ireland, where the Royal Ulster Constabulary are the local police force, has also meant a change in the style of maintaining law and order. In general, there has been increase in the number of special units trained in crowd and riot control and in the use of firearms, a controversial area for the British police. The number of police has risen along with the crime rate.

Дата добавления: 2015-01-03