Courts of England and Wales


The Courts of England and Wales, supported administratively by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales.
Except in constitutional matters, committed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom does not generally have a single unified legal system—England and Wales have one system, Scotland another, and Northern Ireland a third. There are additional exceptions to this rule; for example, in immigration law, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal's jurisdiction covers the whole of the United Kingdom, while in employment law, there is a single system of employment tribunals for England, Wales, and Scotland but not Northern Ireland. Additionally, the Military Court Service has jurisdiction over all members of the armed forces of the United Kingdom in relation to offences against military law.
The Court of Appeal, the High Court, the Crown Court, the County Court, and the magistrates' courts are administered by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.
There have been multiple calls from both Welsh academics and politicians for a Wales criminal justice system.

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest appeal court in almost all cases in England and Wales. Before the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 this role was held by the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. The Supreme Court is also the highest court of appeal for devolution matters, a role previously held by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The Supreme Court has a separate administration from the other courts of England and Wales, and its administration is under a Chief Executive who is appointed by the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Senior Courts of England and Wales

The Senior Courts of England and Wales were originally created by the Judicature Acts as the "Supreme Court of Judicature". It was renamed the "Supreme Court of England and Wales" in 1981, and again to the "Senior Courts of England and Wales" by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. It consists of the following courts:
  • Court of Appeal
  • High Court of Justice
  • Crown Court
The Senior Courts of England and Wales, along with the Tribunals and other courts, are administered and supported by HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal deals only with appeals from other courts or tribunals. The Court of Appeal consists of two divisions: the Civil Division hears appeals from the High Court and the County Court and certain superior tribunals, while the Criminal Division may only hear appeals from the Crown Court connected with a trial on indictment. Its decisions are binding on all courts, including itself, apart from the Supreme Court.

High Court

The High Court of Justice functions both as a civil court of first instance and a criminal and civil appellate court for cases from the subordinate courts. It consists of three divisions: the King's Bench, the Chancery, and the Family divisions. The divisions of the High Court are not separate courts but have somewhat separate procedures and practices adapted to their purposes. Although particular kinds of cases will be assigned to each division depending on their subject matter, each division may exercise the jurisdiction of the High Court. This also means English High Court puisne judges and above can sit 'cross-bench' meaning they can hear matters normally assigned to another division should they so desire. However, beginning proceedings in the wrong division may result in a cost penalty.
The formation of the Business and Property Courts of England & Wales within the High Court was announced in March 2017, and launched in London in July 2017. The courts are based in the Rolls Building, where there are 31 courts and three super courts able to handle the most complex and multi-party trials. There are regional High Court centres at the civil and family courts in the major cities. The Business and Property Courts administer the specialist jurisdictions that had previously been administered in the Queen's Bench Division under the names of the Admiralty Court, the Commercial Court, and the Technology & Construction Court, and under the Chancery Division's lists for Business, Insolvency and Companies, Competition, Intellectual Property, Revenue, and Property, Trusts and Probate. In 2015, the Financial List was created "for financial claims of £50 million or more, or cases that raise issues concerning the domestic and international financial markets: the equity, derivatives, FX and commodities markets." There are also Regional Business and Property Courts.
The judicial expertise available in the Rolls Building includes asset recovery, banking, commodities, company law, construction, finance, fraud, insolvency and reconstruction. It also covers information technology, insurance, intellectual property, international trade, mining, oil and gas, partnership, property, public procurement, regulation, shipping, tax and trusts. All matters in this list are heard by judges with particular experience in determining disputes in their particular speciality.

Crown Court

The Crown Court is a criminal court of both original and appellate jurisdiction which in addition handles a limited amount of civil business both at first instance and on appeal. It was established by the Courts Act 1971. It replaced the assizes whereby High Court judges would periodically travel around the country hearing cases, and quarter sessions which were courts held periodically in counties, county boroughs and certain boroughs. The Old Bailey is the unofficial name of London's most famous criminal court, which is now part of the Crown Court. Its official name is the Central Criminal Court. The Crown Court also hears appeals from magistrates' courts.
The Crown Court is the only court in England and Wales that has the jurisdiction to try cases on indictment, and when exercising such a role, it is a superior court in that its judgments cannot be reviewed by the Administrative Court of the King's Bench Division of the High Court.
The Crown Court is an inferior court in respect of the other work it undertakes, namely among other things, appeals from the magistrates' courts and other tribunals.

Subordinate courts

The most common subordinate courts in England and Wales are
  • County Court
  • Family Court
  • Magistrates' courts
  • Youth courts

    County Court

The County Court is a national court with a purely civil jurisdiction, sitting in 92 different towns and cities across England and Wales. As of 22 April 2014 there has been a single County Court for England and Wales where previously there was a series of courts. The County Court is so named after the ancient sheriff's court held in each county, but it has no connection with it nor indeed was the jurisdiction of the county courts based on counties.
A County Court hearing is presided over by either a district or circuit judge and, except in a small minority of cases such as civil actions against the police, the judge sits alone as a trier of fact and law without assistance from a jury. The old county courts' divorce and family jurisdiction was passed on 22 April 2014 to the single Family Court.
Until unification in 2014, county courts were local courts in the sense that each one has an area over which certain kinds of jurisdiction, for example, proceedings for possession of the land had to be started in the county court in whose district the property lay, but in general, any county court in England and Wales could hear any action and claims were frequently transferred from court to court.

Family Court

The Family Court is a national court and has jurisdiction to hear all family cases in England and Wales. Local jurisdictional boundaries have disappeared and there is only one single jurisdiction for all family proceedings. The Family Court sits at many locations in England and Wales, and it usually sits at the County Court centres and magistrates courts where family work was previously heard by county courts or family proceedings courts. Family Court judges are now more categories of judges who will be eligible to hear family cases including lay magistrates, district judges, circuit judges, and High Court judges from the Family Division.

Magistrates' and youth courts

s are local criminal courts, where all criminal proceedings start. They are presided over by a bench of magistrates, or a legally trained district judge, sitting in each local justice area. There are no juries. They have jurisdiction to hear minor criminal cases, as well as certain licensing appeals. Youth courts are run on similar lines to adult magistrates' courts but deal with offenders aged between the ages of ten and seventeen inclusive. Youth courts are presided over by a specially trained subset of experienced adult magistrates or a district judge. Youth magistrates have a wider catalog of disposals available to them for dealing with young offenders and often hear more serious cases against youths. Youth courts are not open to the public for observation, only the parties involved in a case being admitted.
Prior to the enactment of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, some magistrates' courts were also a family proceedings court and heard family law cases including care cases and they had the power to make adoption orders. Family cases are no longer heard by the magistrates' courts, instead being heard by the single Family Court established by the 2013 Act.

Special courts and tribunals

In addition, there are many other specialist courts. These are often described as "tribunals" rather than courts, but the difference in name is meaningless. For example, an employment tribunal is an inferior court of record for the purposes of the law of contempt of court. In many cases, there is a statutory right of appeal from a tribunal to a particular court or specially constituted appellate tribunal. In the absence of a specific appeals court, the only remedy from a decision of a tribunal may be via judicial review to the High Court, which will often be more limited in scope than an appeal.
Examples of specialist courts are: