English Legal System (Paper 1)
Statutory interpretation
The criminal courts and lay people
Judicial precedent
The Judiciary
types of judge. Role of judges in criminal courts
Legal personnel - roles of barristers, solicitors and legal executives; regulations.
Access to justice and funding in criminal system
Nature of law
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Judicial precedent is based on the doctrine of stare decisis - meaning to 'stand by the decided'.
Binding precedent - decision made in an earlier case which must be followed in a later case.
Persuasive precendent - a decision that doesn't have to be followed by later cases, but a judge may decide to follow it.
Obiter dicta - statements made in a judgement that were not part of law in deciding the case (R v Howe).
Literal rule
Mischief rule
Purposive approach
Golden rule
The court will take the words of the precedent in its ordinary or literal meaning.
An approach to statutory interpretation in which the courts look to see what the purpose was of the law (Whitley v Chapel).
Words interpretated to fill in the gaps in the original Act (Heydon's case).
Words interpretated to avoid absurdity.
Wide approach - Adler v George; where there is no alternative meaning of a word but the literal interpretation produces an unfair or absurd, the judge can modify the meaning to ensure the meaning of the Act makes sense.
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