What is the difference between rules and directions? Some parts of the Civil Procedure Rules seem to be parts of the rules, other seem to be labelled as Practice Directions, however they are still numbered as in the same scheme as the other parts. Then there is the Criminal Practice Directions which makes it handy to conveniently refer to the Civil Procedure Rules as CPR without risking confusion with the criminal ones because I suppose they would be CPD if abbreviated. But what other significance does this difference in terminology have?
There are many Procedure Rules are they just that - the rules that need to be followed i.e. the &quot;what&quot;. Whereas a Practice Direction is &quot;how&quot; a Rule should be implemented, or as Wikipedia puts it, a supplemental protocol to rules of civil and criminal procedure in the courts – &quot;a device to regulate minor procedural matters&quot;.
While you have correctly stated the usual order of events in a trial, the judge has wide discretion to modify the order if it seems that justice will be served. Even in a serious criminal case, the judge can reopen testimony after closing arguments have started if the judge finds that there is good reason to do so. Traffic cases are generally less formal, and the judge will more freely modify procedure to bring out the facts of the case. I have often seen judges at traffic court ask significant relevant questions, and if they are in fact relevant, i don't think you will get far objecting to their begin asked. I am not a lawyewr, but I also have observed several traffic cases in Maryland and in NJ.
Discovery Basically, you ask. If your opponent thinks your request is out of bounds they object, give their reasons to the judge, you give yours and the judge orders them to produce the evidence or not. A lot of people think court cases have big “ah-ha” movements when a witness reveals something unknown on the stand. This rarely happens because there are no secrets in litigation - both sides have to clearly explain their case before, usually well before, they go to trial.
In the example given, both elements must be established. This is the most common meaning of the word &quot;and&quot; in a statute or rule or contract or other writing, but there are times when &quot;and&quot; does not have that meaning. One must always determine the meaning from context on a case by case basis. Words do not have a single universal meaning in all contexts for legal purposes. This variation by context in the meaning of words for legal purposes is especially frequent in countries with common law legal systems based upon the English legal system such as the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and India to have situations where a word often means one thing in one legal context and another thing in different legal contexts. This is because the governing statutes and case law are written on a piecemeal basis by many different people with no one in charge of maintaining stylistic uniformity, over a very long period of time (often centuries). In countries like those of Continental Europe, Latin America and much of Asia and Africa, which have what are called &quot;civil law&quot; systems, that are based on European civil codes, there are comprehensive codifications of the basic laws of the land that are drafted by experts all at the same time, and amended only with great deliberation and care, and these codes tend to use a word more consistently in most contexts than common law legislatures and judges do, although even then, this principle is not absolute.
One does not introduce statutes in a trial, criminal of civil. Rather, one introduces facts. The judge will present &quot;the law&quot;, and will present it in a digested form in the form of interpreted instructions to the jury about what the law says. Jurors are not required to interpret the meaning of statutes, because jurors are also not expected to know the relevant case law surrounding a statute. A party might make a motion to the judge where the argument depends in part on the wording of a statute. Then there is a standard but jurisdiction-dependent way of referring to s statute, e.g. ORS 164.015, RCW 9A.56.010. For Minnesota there are three interchangeable forms: &quot;Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 123.45, subdivision 6&quot; which is the same as &quot;MINN. STAT. 123.45 (2008)&quot; or &quot;MINN. STAT. ANN. 123.45 (2008)&quot;, which is for statutes. You have to look it up on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis – here is the answer that Minnesota gives (all legal citations).
I would say all the similarities and differences between approaching a barrister directly and going through a solicitor are set out in the PDF. The historical division of barristers and solicitors is discussed in the document. Traditionally, solicitors took on cases and did the 'behind the scenes' preparation before a case went to trial, and barristers represented that client in the courtroom using the prepared materials. You needed to go through a solicitor in order to be represented by a barrister; there was no way of approaching a barrister directly yourself as a lay person. While this has changed with the Public Access Barrister scheme, this way of instructing a barrister is still seen as the 'default' method. In the usual scheme of things, you, as a client, would deal with a solicitor, and they would then instruct a barrister to represent you in court. In the Public Access Barristers scheme, you, the client, effectively miss out the solicitor stage and you approach the barrister directly. But this leaves something of a gap. In the typical client-solicitor-barrister model, the solicitor's role is to prepare the case for the barrister: collating documents for court, for example. The barrister then takes the papers, reads them, prepares an argument based on those documents and puts the client's case in a courtroom. (This isn't always the case, as the document makes clear: some barristers are not qualified to conduct litigation, for example, whereas some solicitors are qualified to represent clients in court. It's more the typical and historical model.) In the Public Access Barrister scheme, there is no solicitor to prepare the case. From the PDF provided, this means that: this is cheaper, as you're not paying for two lawyers; but conversely: you will have to undertake some of the preparation yourself, e.g. collating the papers, and there are some cases which are too complex for a client to take directly to a barrister, because a solicitor would be required to prepare all of the documents necessary for the trial. In terms of similarities, you will still end up receiving the advice and/or the representation of a barrister; you simply won't be going through a third party, but will be dealing directly with that barrister.
These are different terms for initiating documents. What one court or jurisdiction calls a petition, another might call an application. &quot;Complaint&quot; may not have a technical meaning in some contexts or jurisdictions, but often it is used to refer to the initiating document at a specialist tribunal. There are other names for initiating documents: notice of civil claim, notice of action, etc. There is no way to know which terms have a technical meaning and what those meanings are without looking to the rules and practice in a particular jurisdiction. &quot;Indictment&quot; is an initiating document in a criminal prosecution. But there are also &quot;informations&quot; (generally implying lesser charges).
I'm not sure if you are asking for each of the countries listed, but I am assuming that they are there merely for example. In the US, the are a variety of different rules for its different court systems. As a rule, each State can make its own rules for its court system, and the overarching Federal system has its own rules as well, although they run off of the same principles. As such, the answer varies on which state the court is located in and possibly the type of document. In California, for example, different documents have different retention times for different documents. For example, documents for civil cases default to 10 years of retention, while adoption paperwork is retained permanently. For a criminal matter, the judgement (the final product that says if the accused is found guilty or innocent, and for what crimes) is retained permanently, while all other documents are retained for the greater of 50 years or the maximum length of sentence imposed. When the retention period for a document is over, the document is not automatically destroyed(at least in California). Instead, the appropriate official sends an official notice to all the parties in the case that the document is to be destroyed, and if no response is received to transfer the documents, the documents can be destroyed. (Source:http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&amp;sectionNum=68152) Note: I have said "document" throughout, which originally meant a piece of paper. However, recently, documents have been submitted electronically, and sometimes older documents are electronically scanned.