You must pay more just because you can Suppose I win a civil lawsuit against two parties in California, one being wealthy and the other being poor (and unlikely to pay), but the poor party has clearly (according to the judge, any jury member, or any spectator) played the bigger "wrongful role". Also, suppose there was no monetary benefit to the wealthy party. (E.g., there was an accidental killing where the poor party was robbing someone with a pointed gun, and the wealthy party tripped into the scene, bumping the gun and causing it to fire - This example might be too extreme, so modify it with some one-time negligence on the part of the wealthy party if you must.) Can the judge force the wealthy party to pay more? Since I could have sued only the wealthy party in the first place, it seems the judge should also be able to use a person's wealth as basis for awarded damages, but this does not seem fair here. In general, how is the wealth of defendants used by judges to award damages? Is there any case where the judge is not supposed to consider the wealth of a defendant?
Joint and several v Proportionate liability Joint and several liability is the common law default for torts. Each tortfeasor is “jointly” (together) and “severally” (individually) liable for the total amount. Some jurisdictions have adopted statutes that use proportionate liability for some or all torts and/or elements of the damage. California has for non-economic damage (pain &amp; suffering etc.) in 1431.2 but keeps joint and several liability for economic loss (e.g. property damage, medical costs etc.). Proportional liability does not apply when liability arises through law rather than through fault. So an employer is still fully liable for the torts of an employee etc.
Considering that the US legal system is more or less similar in practice to the English Courts, yes it is possible to plea bargian a deal. I'm linking to the wikipedia article on the matter with a specific link to the England and Wales for guidence. Normally, I'd explain, but I'm an American and the differences between Magistrate and Crown courts are big enough differences that I can't tell you what the differences in the case is. I should point out this is a legal area where America differences with much of the world. 90% of the United States criminal cases (and a good number of civil cases, which are settled privately before discovery phase) are plea bargained to lesser sentences. Additionally remorse has nothing to do with the plea bargain. You might only be sorry that you got caught breaking the law and can still plea. The lighter sentence is sort of a "thank you" for saving the state money in not having to build their case against you. It is also used to coerce cooperation with the police, as they may have the accused dead to rights and can prosecute him successfully, but he's a little fish who can give intel to a big fish (this usually comes with the caveat of it being a sworn statement, so they can still prosecute you for something if you're lying... OR that the deal holds on condition that everything is factually true. If evidence contradicts you, you're charged as if you never made a deal). It's also important to note that the police will not honor their deals made for your confession... but they will offer you deals (In the United States, police are allowed to lie to you and do it all the time). However, the prosecutor will honor their deals. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. Finally, most jurisdictions allow the judge final say at sentencing, so if the prosecutor does honor the deal and advises the sentence, don't get upset if the judge is tougher and gives you a harsher sentence on the crime, or rejects your plea outright (expect him to scold the prosecutor for wasting his time with a horrible deal, too. Watch the Law and Order SVU episode Raw for a particularly wonderful instance of this rare event occurring). As a part of US federalism, the rules about this change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so make sure you understand this. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. I would definitely do some leg work into the English Legal system's opinions on plea bargains. Just because they have it does not mean the state lawyers like employing it and many jurisdictions see it as full on corruption in other parts of the world, even the Common Law jurisdictions.
Judicial immunity means only that the judge can't be sued by the people negatively affected by his decisions, even if they were made corruptly. The idea is that if this were possible, then anyone who lost a case before the judge could sue him, perhaps falsely claiming that he was corrupt. Defending such suits would be a major nuisance and expense for the judge, and some fraction of such cases might be wrongly decided against him (courts do err sometimes). So, a party who said (or insinuated) to the judge that "you'd better decide my case in my favor or else I'll sue you" would have a credible threat, and the judge might be intimidated into giving in. This would certainly not be in the public interest, and so judicial immunity removes this possibility. It's a trade-off: the harm done by false accusations would outweigh the good done by legitimate lawsuits against truly corrupt judges, and you can't allow the latter without creating the possibility of the former. However, judges can still be held accountable for corruption - just not through the mechanism of lawsuits by the affected parties. This is addressed within the Dennis decision, in the paragraph right above the one you quoted: But judicial immunity was not designed to insulate the judiciary from all aspects of public accountability. Judges are immune from 1983 damages actions, but they are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens. O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 503 (1974). So a corrupt judge can still be prosecuted by the state: removed from his job, fined, sent to prison, etc. But the decision to prosecute him would be made by a state prosecutor, who has no personal stake in matters before the court, rather than by a potentially disgruntled litigant.
Usually I would think one answer to a question is enough. But since your edits have transformed a reasonable procedural question into what appears to be a rant about unfairness of the sort which any bankruptcy court has heard hundreds of times before, I will give another piece of advice: Focus on one thing at a time. The judge at the hearing of the application will be deciding (if your question is accurate) the single point whether a house should be sold. The submission "There is an application to annul the bankruptcy to be heard on XXX; if it succeeds this application is a waste of money and if it fails there will still be time for this application before the time limit, so you should adjourn till YYY" is a reasonable one that he will take into account. Saying "The bankruptcy order should never have been made; it was a mistake by my accountants and HMRC, and a High Court Judge joined in the conspiracy" will get you precisely nowhere. Even if the judge believed you rather than the written evidence, it has no bearing on the point he is being asked to decide. More generally; besides casting your arguments into proper shape, there is another good reason to consult a professional, namely that he can tell you when to give up. The courts are bound by laws and regulations; however unfair you may think the result, at some point it is necessary to accept the reality rather than wasting time and money making points that the law cares nothing about. (And no, I see no point discussing this further in comments. This answer can be upvoted if you think it helpful or downvoted if you think it "not useful"; it isn't something to argue against.)
One reason is that in a German civil suit, the cost for lawyers and for the court (court isn't free) is set according to the value that the parties are arguing about, which would be the value that one party demands, minus the value that the other party is offering to pay. Then the cost is divided between winner and loser according to the percentage of the value the claimant was awarded. So if I ask for €1,000,000 and I am rewarded €10,000 then the cost is calculated based on my €1,000,000 claim, and since I was rewarded only 1% of the claim, I'll pay 99% of the cost. The defendant will pay my €10,000 and 1% of the cost, that is my lawyers, their lawyers, and the court. With these rules, asking for the sky and then not getting much is a very, very bad strategy. On the other hand, if a huge company sues me for €10,000 then they can't snow me under with an army of lawyers: The court will get only a small amount of money for the case, so at some rather early point the judge would tell the huge company: Stop right now; I'm not paid enough money to listen to your army of lawyers.
The notion of a peer for purposes of the jury is someone who "walks in the same shoes" as the defendant or litigants. A freeman was to be juried by other freemen, a Peer of the Realm by other (capital P) Peers, a landsman by other landholders, and a marine by other sailors. The ancient origins of a judgment by jury were rooted in removing allegations by the defendant, alleging unfairness of the process, since the defendant himself was a party to the selection of those who would weigh his actions before the law and mete out punishments, the defendant could have confidence that he wasn't being railroaded. In the USA, we've done away with the codified, defined social definitions such as peerage and royalty and owned/indentured vs. free...so we are all, as far as the law defines, equal peers.
It’s their job Or, at least, part of their job. For some, like state-employed medical examiners it’s an explicit part of their job description that they will give expert testimony when required. For others, it can be something they choose to do as part of their business, either as a side-gig to their “day job” (most experts). Or because their primary business is dispute resolution, this includes many professionals who become arbitrators or expert determiners and offer their services as expert witnesses. In both cases, it’s a job for which they get paid, and usually, paid handsomely. For example, all the engineering companies that I have been part of charge 3-4x their normal fee for legal work partly because it’s demanding work that distracts from their core business but mostly because of market economics - people will pay more for an expert witness than they will for a consulting engineer even when they’re the same person. It’s also difficult and nasty work - no one enjoys writing reports that they know are going to be attacked over every inconsistency. As for giving evidence and being cross-examined? Even at $500/h, you’re getting a bargain. Other people may be motivated by the noble ideal of a just cause. Me? Here’s my bank account, make sure the money’s there before I testify. So, how much were you offering?
There are a lot more differences than this, but if your teacher sums up what he/she means by that sentence. Here, specifically, in Civil Law, the decision of the courts must comply with the laws as enacted, which means there are specific statutes required to make something illegal. Common Law features Stare Decisis which basically means that if Case A is decided in one way, and Case B is a similar Case to Case B, Case B must yield the same decision for all cases in that jurisdiction and lower courts below that court. This means that while statutes (laws) can be made by a legislature, the courts can "make law" by deciding cases. For example, some States in the United States and England and Wales only recently (within the past 30 years) adopted an actual law that made murder illegal? Prior to that murder was illegal under Common Law Murder that had been based on precedence from bazillion cases before that said it's illegal. Nobody bothered to write it down in an actual law. There are several other big differences such as Inquisitorial vs. Adversarial nature of courts, how and when punishments are decided (The famous "Just following Orders" Defense was given in part because of this difference and a lack of understanding over it.), who is the trier of fact vs. who is the trier of law, but as far as what is "Law" this is a good single summation of the difference in a single sentence. But it really shouldn't be condensed to a single sentence.