Judicial System of the RF, GB and USA

 JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF THE RF, GB AND USA

 Judicial System of the Russian Federation

 1. In all legal systems there are institutions for modifying, interpreting and applying the law. Usually these take the form of a hierarchy of courts as a branch of government established to administer justice. The role of each court and its capacity to make decisions is strictly defined in relation to other courts. There are two main reasons for having a variety of courts. One is that a particular court can specialize in particular kinds of legal actions (for example, family courts). The other is that a person who feels his case was not fairly treated in a lower court can appeal to a higher court for reassessment. The decisions of a higher court are binding upon lower courts.

 2. The structure of our judicial system and the sphere of activities of its various parts are determined by the Constitution and federal constitutional laws. There are three main elements within this system: the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Higher Arbitration Court.

 3. The Constitutional Court of the RF considers cases relating to the compliance of the federal laws, normative acts of the President, the Council of the Federation, the State Duma, the Government, constitutions of republics, charters and other normative acts of the subjects of the RF with the country’s Constitution. There is a separate system of the constitutional courts (or charter courts) of the republics and other subjects of the Federation.

 4. The Supreme Court is the highest judicial body of the four-tiered system of courts of general jurisdiction: civil, criminal, administrative and military cases. Lower courts are district, city and regional courts. After the reestablishment of the Justices of the Peace in 2000 magistrate’s courts have become an integral part of the system of courts of general jurisdiction. The activity of all these courts may be classified as follows: a court of trial, a court of appeal, a court of cassation.

 5. The Higher Arbitration Court is the supreme judicial body within the system of courts competent to settle economic disputes. The basic judicial organs in that system are arbitration courts of the subjects of the Federation.

 6. Each court has its staff which usually consists of legally qualified judges, clerks and bailiffs. The participants of the legal procedure may be the following: a plaintiff – the party bringing a lawsuit, a defendant – a party being sued, a jury – a group of ordinary people summoned to pass a verdict, a prosecutor - the lawyer for the plaintiff in a criminal case, an advocate - a lawyer for defence or just a legal counsel in civil cases, witnesses - people who give testimony, experts - they express their own opinions.

 The history of constitutional court in Russia

 December 25, 1989  the Constitutional Supervision Committee was created. It started functioning mid-1990 and was dissolved towards the end of 1991. In December 1990 the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was amended with provisions which provided for creation of Constitutional Court (whereas a similar USSR body was called a Committee, not a Court). On July 12, 1991 Constitutional Court of the RSFSR Act was adopted. In October the Fifth RSFSR Congress of Soviets elected 13 members of the Court and the Constitutional Court de facto started functioning. From November 1991 till October 1993 it rendered some decisions of great significance. For example, it declared unconstitutional certain decrees of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which were adopted ultra vires, and forbade the practice of extrajudicial eviction.

 On October 7, 1993 Boris Yeltsin's decree suspended work of the Constitutional Court. According to the decree, the Constitutional Court was "in deep crisis". On December 24 another presidential decree repealed the Constitutional Court of the RSFSR Act. In July 1994 the new Constitutional Court Act was adopted. However, the new Constitutional Court started working only in February, 1995, because the Federation Council of Russia refused several times to appoint judges nominated by Yeltsin.

 In 2005 the federal authorities proposed to transfer the court from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.

 President Dmitry Medvedev on June 2, 2009 signed an amendment whereby the chairperson of the court and his deputies would be proposed to the parliament by the president rather than elected by the judges, as was the case before.[1]

 Constitutional Court Judge Vladimir Yaroslavtsev in an interview to the Spanish newspaper 2009, claimed that the presidential executive office and security services had undermined judicial independence in Russia. In October the Constitutional Court  accused Yaroslavtsev of "undermining the authority of the judiciary" in violation of the judicial code and forced him to resign from the Council of Judges. Judge Anatoly Kononov  had supported Yaroslavtsev  in his interview to Sobesednik. The Constitutional Court forced Kononov to step down from the Constitutional Court on January 1, 2010, 7 years ahead of schedule.

 Law of the United Kingdom

 The United Kingdom has three legal systems. English law, which applies in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland law, which applies in Northern Ireland, are based on common-law principles. Scots law, which applies in Scotland, is a pluralistic system based on civil-law principles, with common law elements dating back to the High Middle Ages. The Treaty of Union, put into effect by the Acts of Union in 1707, guaranteed the continued existence of a separate law system for Scotland. The Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 contained no equivalent provision but preserved the principle of separate courts to be held in Ireland, now Northern Ireland

 The Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (usually just referred to, as "The House of Lords") was the highest court in the land for all criminal and civil cases inEngland and Wales and Northern Ireland, and for all civil cases in Scots law, but in October 2009 was replaced by the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

 In England and Wales, the court system is headed by the Supreme Court of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice (for civil cases) and the Crown Court (for criminal cases). The Courts of Northern Ireland follow the same pattern. In Scotland the chief courts are the Court of Session, for civil cases, and the High Court of Justiciary, for criminal cases. Sheriff courts have no equivalent outside Scotland as these Courts deal both with criminal and civil caseloads.

 The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the highest court of appeal for several independent Commonwealth countries, the British overseas territories, and the British Crown dependencies. There are also immigration courts with UK-wide jurisdiction — the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and Special Immigration Appeals Commission. The Employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal have jurisdiction throughout Great Britain, but not Northern Ireland.

1. Three legal systems

 There are three distinct legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Each has its own legal system.

1. English law

 "English law" is a term of art. It refers to the legal system administered by the courts in England and Wales. The ultimate body of appeal is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. They rule on both civil and criminal matters. English law is renowned as being the mother of the common law. English law can be described as having its own distinct legal doctrine, distinct from civil law legal systems since 1189. There has been no major codification of the law, andjudicial precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive. In the early centuries, the justices and judges were responsible for adapting the Writ system to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law, e.g., the Law Merchant began in the Pie-Powder Courts see Court of Piepowder (a corruption of the French "pieds-poudrés" or "dusty feet", meaning ad hoc marketplace courts). As Parliamentdeveloped in strength, and subject to the doctrine of separation of powers, legislation gradually overtook judicial law making so that, today, judges are only able to innovate in certain very narrowly defined areas. Time before 1189 was defined in 1276 as being time immemorial.

 After the Acts of Union, in 1707, English law has been one of two legal systems in the same kingdom and has been influenced by Scots law, most notably in the development and integration of the law merchant by Lord Mansfield and in time the development of the law of negligence. Scottish influence may have influenced the abolition of the forms of action in the nineteenth century and extensive procedural reforms in the twentieth.

2. Northern Irish legal system

 The law of Northern Ireland is a common law system. It is administered by the courts of Northern Ireland, with ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in both civil and criminal matters. The law of Northern Ireland is closely similar to English law, the rules of common law having been imported into the Kingdom of Ireland under English rule. However there are still important differences.

 The sources of the law of Northern Ireland are English common law, and statute law. Of the latter, statutes of the Parliaments of Ireland, of the United Kingdom and of Northern Ireland are in force, and latterly statutes of the devolved Assembly.

3. Scots law

 Scots law is a unique legal system with an ancient basis in Roman law. Grounded in uncodified civil law dating back to the Corpus Juris Civilis, it also features elements of common law with medieval sources. Thus Scotland has a pluralistic, or 'mixed', legal system, comparable to that of South Africa, and, to a lesser degree, the partly codified pluralistic systems of Louisiana and Quebec. Since the Acts of Union, in 1707, it has shared a legislature with the rest of the United Kingdom. Scotland and England & Wales each retained fundamentally different legal systems, but the Union brought English influence on Scots law and vice versa. In recent years Scots law has also been affected by both European law under the Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament which may pass legislation within its areas of legislative competence as detailed by the Scotland Act 1998.

 English Judiciary

 1. The Civil Courts. Civil actions take place between two or more individuals in dispute. These disputes can take many forms, for example between neighbours, families, companies, consumers and manufacturers. It is the function of the civil courts to adjudicate on these disputes.

 2. The lowest court in a civil action is a county court, of which there is one in every town in England and Wales. There are some 250 county courts. Each court is assigned at least one circuit judge and one district judge. The circuit judge usually hears the high-value claims and matters of greater importance or complexity. The district judge hears uncontested matters, mortgage repossession claims and small-value claims. The circuit judge deals with appeals from decisions by the district judge.

 3. The jurisdiction of the county courts covers: actions founded upon contract and tort; trust and mortgage cases; action for the recovery of land; disputes between landlords and tenants, complaints about race and sex discrimination; admiralty cases (maritime questions and offences) and patent cases; divorce cases and other family matters. The general limit in such cases heard before the county court is 25,000 pounds.

 4. Cases involving larger amounts of money are heard by one of the divisions of the High Court. This court has unlimited civil jurisdiction and consists of three branches:

 - the Queen’s Bench Division, which is concerned with contract and tort cases, and deals with applications for judicial review;

 - the Chancery Division, which deals with corporate and personal insolvency, disputes in the running of companies, between landlords and tenants and in intellectual property matters; and the interpretation of trusts and contested wills, and

 - the Family Division, which is concerned with family law, including adoption and divorce.

 Judges in the County Courts are circuit judges who rank equally with those who sit in the Crown Court. They are assisted by district judges.

 5. Appeals in matrimonial, adoption, guardianship and child care proceedings heard by magistrates courts go to the Family  Division of the High Court. The Chancery Division hears appeals about bankruptcy and company insolvency decisions. The Queen’s Bench Division exercises jurisdiction in respect of habeas corpus cases. Appeals from the High Court and county courts are heard in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), which is presided over by the Master of the Rolls.

 The Court of Appeal normally consists of three judges. Each one delivers a judgment, and the majority opinion prevails. The Court has the power to order a new trial or the reversal or variation of a judgment.

 6. In accordance with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the judicial functions of the House of Lords as of the final national court of appeal in civil and criminal cases are set to be transferred in 2009 to a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. This Supreme Court of the UK shall consist of 12 judges appointed by the Monarch by letters patent. One of the judges becomes President and one is appointed to be Deputy President of the Court. The judges other than the President and Deputy President are styled “Justices of the Supreme Court”.

 The first Supreme Court judges are the current twelve Lords of Appeal in Ordinary but the new members of the Court will not take the peerage.

 7. The Criminal Courts. There are two main types of court, magistrates' courts (or courts of first instance), which deal with about 95 per cent of criminal cases, and Crown Courts for more serious offences. All criminal cases above the level of magistrates' courts are held before a jury.

 8. There are about 700 magistrates' courts in England and Wales, served by - approximately 28,000 unpaid or lay' magistrates or Justices of the Peace (JPs), who have been dealing with 'minor crimes for over 600 years. JPs are ordinary citizens chosen from the community. These people are not legally qualified but receive some basic training in court procedures, the examination of pre-sentence reports and penalties for certain offences. Lay magistrates usually sit in groups of three. The more senior magistrate sits in the middle and plays the leading role. They should not all be of the same sex. Serving members of the lay magistracy are entitled to use the letters 'JP' after their names meaning that they are Justices of the Peace.

 Magistrates' courts may not impose a sentence of more than six months imprisonment or a fine of more than £2,000, and may refer cases requiring a heavier penalty to the Crown Court.