Talk:Court.html



Something needs to be said about tribunals here. In England and Wales a "tribunal" is often something different from a court (with some notable exceptions). Francis Davey 01:40, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The difference does need to be brought out. Please see below.VivekM

It should also be said that the description of a court room is nonsense for my jurisdiction (England and Wales), which while not "typical" perhaps, is the oldest common law jurisdiction. Some things such as not having a flag; courts rarely being wood panelled and so on stand out. I cannot visualise where the "bar" is supposed to go in a court room from the description given. I have appeared in quite a few courts and never been aware of an area that only I may enter.

Perhaps those who work in jurisdictions with more typical court rooms could make a description that can be visualised (which way does the bar go for example) and make it clear that things differ.

In England and Wales there are some curious differences, eg in most London Magistrates' Courts there is a single Royal Coat of Arms above the judge, in the City of London there is a vertical sword in its place flanked by the Royal and City Coats of Arms (one has to do something to while away the hours waiting to be called on). Francis Davey 01:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've added some of the above, rather than tried to edit what is there. I hope this will prompt someone to do a bit of editing -- someone who knows more than I do about courts around the world. An explanation of what the "bar" is would be cool to.

Francis Davey 22:07, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

pluripersonal courts etc

Can someone explain the passage in this about pluripersonal courts, it makes no sense to me (a practising barrister in England). Does the pluripersonal describe the size of the tribunal -- eg 3 judges usually sit in our Court of Appeal of England and Wales, or does it refer to the number of members of the court itself? The paragraph at the moment is deeply mysterious.

Francis Davey 11:00, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am an American attorney. I have never seen the term "pluripersonal" before. I concur with the comment by Francis Davey. The article does not seem to explain the term effectively. Can anyone enlighten us? Famspear 05:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Attempting re-draft

Hi, I'm doing a re-draft on my user page (leaving the article as it stands), in response to (and agreement with) the Rfe. I think the present article is well thought out in structure but could do with some re-arrangement; and fleshing out of content particularly to enable linking to very good existing material on related topics. I'm new to town. So comment, help, directions and company would be more than welcome. Apart from treatment of Francis Davey's requests already noted in the draft, explaining "bar" should be interesting. VivekM 23:33, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Civil Law

Hi, although I'm not a civil law qualified lawyer (and more than prepared to be corrected), it is not my understanding that civil law is based on French law (although France is of course a civil law jurisdiction); rather Roman law. Wikipedia contains a helpful entry on Civil Law (see the second link on the disambiguation page). Regards, --DRN 19:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The term "court" sometimes means the judge, by law

I corrected some of the verbiage in the article. In the United States, for example, in the case of many Federal courts, the judge actually IS "the court," by statute. Of course, the term "the court" can also refer to the room or place where the proceeding is held, and that is the more common use of the term. Yours, Famspear 23:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

This is actually a common-law tradition. You'll see the same thing in Canada or England (as in finding things like "The Court addressed the plaintiff" etc. in the trial record). It probably comes from the fact that there weren't fixed courts (as in places) in the past but rather itinerant judges who traveled a circuit. G. Csikos, 3 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.67.145 (talk) 23:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it often causes muddle in England and Wales because many of our courts can sit in multiple places at multiple times. The High Court of Justice might be sitting in 40 or 50 places, not all in the same town, at the same time, but it is still one court (as we would understand it). It just happens to be rather a big one. The Crown Court is even bigger. For administrative and practical reasons this does make a difference. Francis Davey (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

history

I removed this:

The court was traditionally where the monarch gave an audience to visitors. These audiences were often appellants requesting the monarchs judgement in resolving a dispute. European monarchs of the medieval period, such as Englands Henry II, found it expedient to appoint representatives, known as magistrates, to dispense justice on their behalf. These magistrates were set up in houses across the country as surrogates of the Royal Court and so were also known as courts. These became the basis of the modern legal administration system and the word court has come to mean a place where the law is heard.

because it is so horridly confused in its historical account that it is far more misleading to leave it in. I am not sure I am able to produce something accurate to replace it or what should go there (if anything). One difficulty is that it is far from clear that a "court" is originally a specifically royal court. In any case the history is all wrong. There are lots and lots of non-royal courts long before Henry II (Sheriff's courts, market courts, courts of feudal lords, courts of the counties Palatine, courts of the vil and hundred and so on). Magistrates or justices of the peace were a separate creation (as a counter-balance to the power of the Sheriff amongst other things) and had nothing to do with the central justice of the Royal courts. Local instances of Royal justice was carried out first through the institution of the Eyre and then via the system of judges going on circuit (even here I am simplifiying of course) at first with specific commissions, then with more general ones, not to mention the use of judicial writs to have matters heard in the county. None of this has anything to do with justices of the peace. Francis Davey (talk) 23:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)