In criminal cases, appeals can be made either against the conviction or against the sense. This means that the person found guilty of an offence can appeal against the guilty conviction on certain grounds, or can appeal against the severity of the sentence. The crown (Prosecution) also has the right to appeal against the leniency of the sentence. The party appealing is known as the appellant/ applicant. The appeal process for sentencing is important because it allows the higher courts to supervise the exercise of sentencing discretion and therefore helps to ensure consistency.
This argument can be broken down into a premise and a conclusion. The premise is ‘for felony capital murder’ and the conclusion to this premise is ‘Singleton was to be executed’. There is an additional premise ‘became insane while in prison’. This premise has the same conclusion ‘Singleton was to be executed’. In this case, we should be aware of the past tense verb ‘was’.
The role of the executive ‘..includes initiating and implementing legislation, maintaining order and security, promoting social and economic welfare, administering public services and conducting the external relations of the state. The judiciary is made up mainly of professional judges, and their main function is ‘to determine disputed questions of fact and law in accordance with the law laid down by Parliament and expounded by the courts and ..is exercised mainly in the civil and criminal courts.' The question which now arises is whether or not there should be a strict separation of each of the above functions. Locke stated: ..it may be too great a temptation to human frailty..for the same persons who have the power of making laws, to have also their hands the power to execute them, whereby
Primary legislations or those made my higher courts can only be change and made compatible with the ECHR with a declaration of incompatibility by the House of Lords, Judicial committee of the Privy Council, Court of Appeal and the High Court. Section 4 of the Human Rights 1998 Act “(1) Subsection (2) applies in any proceedings in which a court determines whether a provision of primary legislation is compatible with a Convention right. (2)If the court is satisfied that the provision is incompatible with a Convention right, it may make a declaration of that incompatibility.” All authorities including courts and tribunals must act in a way that is in compatible with the ECHR. If an individual believes their rights have been infringe by a court or tribunal, they can bring a matter against the public authority or rely on their convention right from proceedings brought by others. If the UK laws are contrary to the ECHR, then the UK law must be voided.
Question 2 Although the doctrine of precedent allows some flexibility, it fundamentally requires judges to respect the hierarchy of the courts . Discuss The doctrine of binding precedent or stare decisis, lies at the heart of the English legal system. In essence the doctrine refers to facts that within the hierarchical structure of the English Court, a decision of the highest court will be binding on a court lower. When a court makes a decision in a case, any court which is of equal or lower status to that court must follow that previous decision if the case before them is similar to that earlier case. Moreover, the doctrine requires that like cases should be treated alike in the interests of consistency and certainty of the law as well as a fairly rigid hierarchy of courts.
Secondly there is Common Law, Common law includes legal principles that have been developed and applied by UK courts. The courts interpret and clarify the law where there is no clear statute law. Common law takes legal precedent made by judges, for example, the right of homeowners to tackle intruders who enter their property. Government ministers may clarify or amend common law trough Acts of Parliament. The common law also includes customs and precedents that have become accepted practice.
Two types of Stare Decisis have been identified: horizontal stare decisis and vertical Stare Decisis. Horizontal Stare Decisis binds the issuing court to its own prior decisions. Vertical Stare Decisis requires that courts of lower rank follow decisions of higher courts. Vertical Stare Decisis has a stronger effect, in that lower courts generally cannot overrule decisions of higher courts, whereas a court may, given adequate reasons to do so, overrule itself. DICUSSION When a
[2] Indeed, this seemingly plainly written text is much more than just a narrative piece of work due to its inherent influence at the sentencing stage. There exists an inherent tension between the two schools of thoughts: one view among the legal academy is that such statements are no more than some maneuver to elongate criminals’ sentences or even encourage votes for death penalty in some extreme cases by evoking unnecessary emotionalism, while some argue that they undeniably convey essential information to sentencing judges and possess other advantageous effects. A literary analysis of a victim impact statement thus becomes essential – exploring the camouflaged narrative techniques as employed to explain their role in court. In this essay, I shall discuss the narrative dimension of victim impact statements in light of Booth v Maryland, followed by an analysis of whether the court should admit such statements in the sentencing phase of cases. II.
d) It is the role of the judiciary, when interpreting statutes, to fill in the gaps in the statutes. 2. Consider the following statements and decide which statement or combination of statements is correct: i) The judiciary creates law as it thinks is appropriate. ii) The judiciary can create law through statutory interpretation. iii) The judiciary creates law as frequently as Parliament.
How can he help it?” Judges in the UK do develop the law through both the operation of the doctrine of judicial precedent and statutory interpretation. In precedent, judges were thought to not make new law. However, it is now recognised that they do use precedent to create new law or extent old principles in various areas. In criminal law, judges have played a major role in developing the law on intention (Vickers 1957 – intention for murder includes intention to cause GBH, later was confirmed in Cunningham 1982; or Moloney 1985, Nedrick 1986 and Woolin 1998 and the law on foresight of consequences in relation with intention). Judicial decisions have also effectively created new crime as in Shaw v. DPP (1962) – offence of conspiracy to corrupt public morals, or R v. R (1991) – rape within marriage is a crime.