Who can ask the judge to interpret a paragraph of his court judgement, in uk? The appeal judge states: The county court judge decided based on arguments that are plainly available to her. The county court judge fell into error in concluding that the non-delegable nature of the Defendant’s duty to the Claimant was somehow relevant to the Part 20 claim. Had the Defendant considered that the county court judge reasons were inadequate then the proper course would have been to ask the county court judgment to provide further reasons in accordance with the guidance set out in English v Emery Reimbold &amp; Strick Ltd [2002] W.L.R. 2409. The defendant advisors would have had plenty of time in which to do this because the county court judgment was circulated in draft form to all the parties more ten weeks before it was eventually handed down. The trial barrister failed to present arguments to the county court judge, that the appeal barrister presented in the appleallate hearing. The county court judge may have been persuaded to have reached a different conclusion had she had the advantage of the arguments presented before me on this appeal but that is not to the point. The Defendant cannot now be heard to complain that if the case had been differently presented below then he may have won. So long as the Judge’s conclusion was consistent with the evidence then her decision must stand. It was and it does. This appeal is dismissed. Who can ask the judge to interpret this judgement: who is responsible? The first barrister or the defendant? If the first barrister, can the defendant claim for barrister professional negligence?
The appeals court has found that the county court judge made a decision that was consistent with the evidence that was presented at trial. As such, the decision is sound. It appears that the defendant tried to present additional/different evidence or different arguments about the law in the appeal than they did at trial - this is not permitted. As to responsibility, the defendant and their legal team were responsible for deciding how to run their case and what evidence to present and what arguments to run. What evidence to present and how to present it and what submissions to make on the law is a tactical decision for each party. You can get it wrong. That doesn't let you try again on appeal. If your barrister has been negligent, and that directly caused you to lose, you can sue your barrister. In terms of interpreting a particular paragraph of a judgement, the appeals court may or may not make comment on a particular paragraph but the reasons, while important, are not really subject to interpretation other than that. A judgement will give orders, these should be very precise and not open to interpretation - things like &quot;the defendant will pay X to the plaintiff&quot; or &quot;the case is dismissed&quot; etc.
Not generally. While double jeopardy considerations does not apply in Canada until the final verdict (i.e. all appeal processes have been exhausted by decision or failure to appeal within the time limit), the right to a jury trial for serious offences, both under the Constitution Act, 1982 (or the Charter, its bill of rights Part) and the Criminal Code (section 471, which not only makes the jury trial a right, but also the compulsory mode of trial unless both prosecutor and the accused consent), exist. Under common law principles, the jury's verdict, in the fact-finding role exclusive to the jury, is almost sacrosanct. Even if in Canada an appeal court can set aside a jury's verdict of acquittal or conviction, they may only do so if there is a reviewable legal error (for appeals from the Crown and the accused), or if the verdict of conviction is plainly unreasonable and cannot be supported by evidence (or otherwise may constitute a miscarriage of justice). In the first case, the reasoning is that the jury's verdict was defective due to e.g. insufficient or wrongful instructions, seeing evidences that should not have been admitted or failure to see evidences that should have been admitted. In the second case, the appeal court acts as a safeguard, much like in the U.S., for the accused to prevent wrongful convictions however it may occur. Even then, the appeal court cannot in essence conduct a new trial from the appeal records and substitute its own factual findings for those made by a jury, unless it finds that no properly instructed jury can reasonably convict the accused based on the evidences presented (R. v. W.H.). Now going back to what the trial judge can do after a jury's verdict. The proper course of action in case where the Crown's case cannot support a conviction is for the accused to seek a directed verdict before presenting any evidence. If the judge grants the motion, the judge (not the jury) enters a verdict of acquittal, which can be appealed for errors of law. Otherwise, the trial judge has no capacity to usurp the fact finding role of the jury. The judge can, however, in exceptional circumstances, declare a mistrial or stay of the proceedings (i.e. the proceeding is concluded without a verdict, due to e.g. abuse of process by the state or other considerations to preserve the integrity of the justice system) following the jury's verdict. All most all cases on this issue followed a verdict of conviction. In one unusual case (R. v. Burke), a verdict of &quot;acquittal&quot; was involved. The verdict is in quotes because in this case, the court recorded a verdict of acquittal apparently contrary to the jury's intention, as the jury foreman had coughed before pronouncing &quot;guilty as charged&quot; and the judge (along with the court reporter, the prosecutor and the defence lawyer) misheard &quot;not guilty as charged&quot;. After seeing the accused in the parking lot, some jury members were confused and returned to the court and reported the error. However, not all jury members could be immediately contacted and the jury had only reconvened in the court with the accused a couple days after the original verdict, and after some newspapers had reported on the situation. The trial judge decided to enter the intended verdict of &quot;guilty&quot;. The accused appealed and the Supreme Court decided in this particular case that: the trial judge can nonetheless exercise a limited jurisdiction after the jury's discharge; the judge could enter the intended verdict if it did not give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias; in this case, due to the media reports and relatively long delay between the original verdict and the reconvening of the jury, which may have improperly influenced the jury, a mistrial should have been the appropriate remedy instead of entering the intended verdict. On the appropriateness of a mistrial, the Supreme Court said In declaring a mistrial, the trial judge therefore turns his or her mind to the question of whether a mistrial is needed to prevent a miscarriage of justice. This determination will necessarily involve an examination of the surrounding circumstances. Injustice to the accused is of particular concern, given that the state with all its resources acts as the singular antagonist of the individual accused in a criminal case. This factor should be balanced against other relevant factors, such as the seriousness of the offence, protection of the public and bringing the guilty to justice. It may be fitting to allow the announced verdict to stand where the period the accused has been at liberty and under the mistaken impression that he or she had been acquitted has been lengthy, and where the charge is not so egregious as to bring the administration of justice into disrepute. As has already been stated, the trial judge is in the best position to assess the circumstances of each individual case and select the most appropriate remedy. This case does not directly apply to a case where the jury intended an acquittal, but the considerations may still be applied in extremely limited circumstances. While no one but the jury is privy to their deliberation process and no judge can overturn a jury's acquittal because they think the jury's verdict is unreasonable, it could be imagined that, for example, if a jury reports an acquittal and a member of jury before being discharged makes a claim of jury intimidation or the Crown presents clear evidence of jury manipulation, the trial judge might still have the authority to declare a mistrial. But this has not been clarified in jurisprudence.
The difficult part is deciding when two cases are similar. Precedents from higher courts govern what the law is in a case. But, a lot of what trial court judges do is to boil down a mountain of evidence to determine authoritatively what facts actually transpired before applying the law to those facts. This involves immense amounts of discretion and judgment. Also, while in some cases the law provides very clear guidance to a judge about what to do, in other cases, the law is vague enough that two different judges can reach two different verdicts, both of which are legally correct, on the same set of facts. For example, in a divorce case (involving made up facts and law to illustrate the idea), suppose that the two main assets of the family are a house and retirement account of equal value and that the facts as applied to the relevant law say that the value of the assets must be divided equally between the husband and wife. One judge could award the house to the husband and the retirement account to the wife, while another judge could award the retirement account to the husband and the house to the wife. But both judges would have complied perfectly with the law. Similarly, in a divorce there are a variety of different custody plans for children that could all conform to the law and different judges could choose different plans and each be correct. As another example, suppose that a bulldozer destroys a house and the person whose house is destroyed sues for money damages. The judge is presented with two different appraisals from equally qualified appraisers for the value of the house, both of whom superficially at least, are using proper appraisal methods. But one appraiser says the house was worth 1,000,000 and another says that the house was worth 1,500,000. Realistically, any verdict the judge renders between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 could be upheld as legally correct. Because the process of turning evidence into legal verdicts involves so much discretion and so many judgment calls, and because it is rare that two cases are factually identical, the goal of giving similar verdicts for similar cases, is difficult to achieve and difficult even to evaluate in real life. It is almost certain that similar cases often result in dissimilar verdicts, and not infrequently the reasons for this (like using personal ideologies as opposed to what the law demands to resolve close cases) are not good ones. But deciding how common that is, or in what kinds of cases it is most troubling that this happens, is very hard to determine.
While I am a U.S. attorney, the U.K. and U.S. are essentially the same on these issue in practice: "reasonable wear and tear" is a classic issue of fact to be decided by the judge (unlike the U.S. there are never juries in U.K. landlord-tenant disputes) based upon the evidence presented to him and his or her good judgment if the case goes to court. There won't be a lot of case law that is specific enough to provide guidance in your particular case (if any) because cases like these aren't worth appealing and creating case law on and because the law intentionally vests judges with great discretion on these issues and only intervenes in appellate decisions when a judge is deeply out of line. The legal definition of "reasonable wear and tear" is basically vacuous and don't provide much meaningful guidance. I know you are joking, but no, do not set it on fire. You will find yourself incarcerated for arson, with a felony criminal record and a restitution judgment in the amount of the damages and a fine and court costs as well, and your credit record will be screwed and no one will rent to you ever again if they find out by doing a cursory background check. Your mum probably won't even invite you to Christmas dinner this year. If they charge your security deposit and you don't think you owe it, you would have to sue them for a return of the part of your security deposit you don't owe, knowing that you face a risk of paying their legal fees if you lose, but will get your fees if you hire a lawyer and win (caveat: there are more nuances to fee shifting in the U.K. courts than I spell out here which are rather technical). If they say you owe more than your security deposit and you don't pay, they can sue you for the balance, knowing that they face a risk of paying your legal fees if they lose, but will get their fees if they win. In practice, it doesn't really make economic sense for either party to hire an attorney because the amount of the fees is so high relative to the amount of money at stake. The security deposit is 2-4 hours of legal time, and the amount claimed is maybe 7-14 hours of legal time, neither of which is sufficient to address the respective issues economically in a fully litigated hearing. Short of going to court, you can provide them documentation and your video to show that you are right and to discourage them from docking your security deposit (in full, anyway) or suing you, ideally A.S.A.P. before they are too committed to taking legal action. You could also propose a compromise and see if you can get them to agree to it with neither party facing the risk of going to court.
Can the judge flat out tell the jury that they cannot vote to nullify the verdict? He can but this kind of &quot;jury nullification&quot; makes little sense and is obvious that is not possible. A verdict is rendered by the jury. Once the verdict is rendered, there is no further vote. It would also make little sense for a jury to render a guilty verdict and later have another vote to nullify the previous verdict. From now one I will refer to jury nullification as we usually refer to it: the jury returns a not guilty verdict, although the jury believes the accused is guilty of the crime (rather than returning a guilty verdict and later nullify it, which is what you are implying here) A different question would be &quot;can the judge ask the jury to not engage in jury nullification&quot;? Yes he/she can. A judge can respond that jury nullification is not possible. If the jury convicts, this false information by the judge is generally deemed a harmless error on appeal, and the conviction is upheld If the judge did so and the jury chooses to nullify the verdict anyways would the fact that the judge forbade them to do so have any impact on what happens from that point forward? No. Jury nullification is part and parcel of common law, and it could well be part of the &quot;jury trial&quot; granted by the Constitution. Would the jury risk repercussions for nullifying a verdict against the judges orders? Only for jury nullification no. They can face repercussions if they lie in voir dire and say that they will follow the law as given to them no matter what, for example. Finally is there any situation where jury trying to nullify a verdict could phrase their objection incorrectly such that the judge could rule it as a guilty verdict (ie if they say &quot;we think you proved the plaintiff did this thing, but we don't believe he should be punished&quot; can the judge rule that they said he was guilty and just ignore the second half?) Juries return a guilty/not guilty verdict. They don't return their thoughts to the court (&quot;we think that....&quot;). They simply say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot;. If for some unknown reason they should choose to tell the judge more than what is required from them, jury nullification is still an option of the jury and something that the jury can do, have the right to do, so the judge will not be able to override the jury. But this is something that should not happen. If the jury wants to engage in jury nullification, they have to tell the judge &quot;not guilty&quot; and nothing more. The jury doesn't have to explain its decision to acquit.
The main rules in a civil case are the rules of evidence, the rules of civil procedure, and a set of largely unwritten rules governing issues such as the order in which matters are presented in a trial and courtroom conduct. Basically, the rules of evidence are really a subset of a larger set of written and unwritten rules about courtroom conduct the unwritten parts of which are assumed to be known by people using them. Robert's Rules of Order do not apply to courtroom proceedings. The judge also has the "direct contempt" power to summarily punish disrespectful conduct in the courtroom without a trial, with fines or incarceration, even if it wouldn't be a crime outside the courtroom. But what if a party to the proceedings who does not "have the floor" wishes to do things like the following: Obtain a restatement (perhaps because it was unintelligible, or perhaps as a ploy for emphasis) of something uttered by another. If you are a party asking a question (or more likely an attorney for a party asking a question on behalf of a party) it is not improper to say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." It is also not generally improper for a non-questioning party to interject and state that they can't hear a witness to a judge. Obtain clarification of a statement. This can be done by a party only when it is the party's turn to cross-examine or redirect as the case may be. A judge can ask for clarification, but a party cannot do so when it is not their turn. Determine or clarify the purpose of an ongoing statement or line of questioning Generally the party not asking a question objects and the court asks the party asking the question to clarify the reason. Sometimes, in a jury trial, the party asked to clarify will say "may we approach the bench" and a private discussion will be held between counsel for both sides and the judge regarding an ongoing issue. Determine whether the judge will allow something later in the proceedings. (E.g., "At some point I hope to speak to point X. May I do that now? Or will I be afforded that opportunity at some later point before the conclusion of this hearing?") Lawyers are expected to know this for the most part without having to ask. Also, usually before the court starts to take evidence, and at breaks, the judge will ask "are there any preliminary matters that need to be addressed?" or "are there any procedural matters that need to be addressed?" and questions such as this can be raised at that time.
This is a great question because it's a useful vehicle for understanding a cross-cutting principle of law: baselines and exceptions. I find that thinking of law as a system of baseline rules and exceptions to these rules is a great way to organize and make sense of the mess that is 'the law.' A police officer testifying about what you told them, whether it helps you or hurts you, is hearsay. So, as you correctly pointed out, the baseline assumption is that that testimony can't come in. But, the hearsay rule is famous for having a ton of exceptions to it. Two relevant exceptions here are: (1) statements against interest, and (2) prior inconsistent statements. If what you told the police officer was a direct admission of liability, or a statement that contradicts the theory of the case that you're presenting to the jury, either or both of these exceptions are going to kick in and make that hearsay admissible. These exceptions are not going to kick in, however, for hearsay statements that help you. A humorous, but related, aside, is that there's some jurisdictional differences in how far the 'statements against interest' exception goes. In some jurisdictions it only applies to admissions of liability, but in other jurisdictions it also applies to simply embarrassing statements. My evidence professor illustrated this by, out of the blue, mind you, saying, in class, &quot;I stopped wetting the bed when I got to college,&quot; and then explaining that in the latter type of jurisdiction, that statement would be admissible. He then paused after the class had finally stopped laughing and said &quot;that's not true, by the way...I stopped in high school.&quot;
The judiciary is an arm of the state There is no “power grab” by the judiciary: they are simply exercising the Constitutional power they have to act as a court of record (given to them in the Supreme Court Act) and resolve disputes. In the UK (among many others), judges get paid to interpret the law - both statute and customary law - weigh the evidence and make decisions. You seem to think this isn’t their job but it is precisely their job. In general, judges try to leave their personal and political opinions outside the court, however, they are human and mistakes are sometimes made, from bias or otherwise. That’s why there is an appeals system - one judge has made a decision, 3 or more others review it. The Grainger test is as much a part of the law of the UK as the Equality Act is. It can be changed by an act of Parliament or it can be changed by a future appellate court at the same level or higher in the hierarchy. Parliament’s role is to write laws of general applicability, the administrations role is to administer those laws, including making decisions about individuals, the judiciaries role is to decide specific controversies by interpreting the law and providing guidelines for consistent decision making by future judges and officials.