Category: Law

Queen Eleanor (1122-1204), mother of King Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ (1157-99), ruled England in his absence on Crusade and she established maritime law circa 1190, a concept she had observed on a French island. As Britain’s sea-faring activities increased in the following centuries, practitioners of this law formed an important, specialist sector of the legal profession.

Maritime, or admiralty, law was initially solely concerned with ships engaged in import and export. It now encompasses all issues related to ships and shipping, including ownership, the crew, collisions, piracy, salvage, carriage of cargo and passengers, unmanned vessels and wrecks, environmental liability and pollution. Territorial matters are dealt with by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

It is considered far better to settle disputes through arbitration than to take them to the Admiralty Court and the London Maritime Arbitrators Association is the world leader in this. A ship itself can be arrested and detained by a Customs Officer if it is seen to be the ‘instrument of mischief’ in a particular incident. It may need to be sold to cover the claim but if it has sunk or is otherwise unavailable, a ‘sister ship’ under the same ownership can be arrested instead.

(Image: Carl Davies at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Solicitors are the British citizen’s first port-of-call for any legal matter. That could be moving house, determining custody of children, dealing with a deceased person’s estate or a dispute with an employer or a neighbour, for instance. Some of the simpler things can be done online nowadays, but using a solicitor is generally the preferred option for the more complex procedures, like criminal litigation.

As the range of legalities is so wide, many solicitors specialise in one field, such as conveyancing. Businesses also use solicitors and may employ them in-house to work on specific matters relating to tax or corporate regulations.

Many people choose a solicitor on recommendation by friends or family and cost is always a factor because their fees are often regarded as expensive. To counter this, since the 1990s there have been ‘no-win-no-fee’ deals which apply to cases where some kind of financial compensation is being claimed. The idea is that if the solicitor fails to extract any payment from an allegedly culpable individual or company for, say, an injury, then there is no fee charged. If the solicitor succeeds, however, then the law states that their fee must not be more than 25% of the moneys received.

(Image: Jaggery at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

After the dust of the Industrial Revolution had settled, there began to be voices heard about declining morals and their effect on children. By the late 1800s the concept had evolved of childhood being an important developmental stage to be protected and cherished. With that came the establishment of special courts to deal solely with our young people, who may well have been led astray by adult criminals.

Today these are the Youth Courts, part of the magistrate system. There is no jury, no media reporting and no public audience. Defendants aged from 10 to 17 are dealt with in these Courts, where they are questioned either by three magistrates or one district judge. Rather than using “Miss..” or “Master..”, the youngsters are addressed by their first name. A parent or guardian must sit with them unless they are aged 16 or 17.

The crimes committed are rarely classified as ‘serious’, e.g. murder, but if they are, a Crown Court appearance is the next stage. Sentencing in those cases may be as severe as with adult criminals, but in most Youth Court convictions the punishment is accompanied by some sort of therapy or training aimed at redirecting these youngsters away from their criminal tendencies.

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The pound sterling is the world’s oldest surviving unit of national currency. King Athelstan, the first king of England, established its official status in 928. A pound sterling began as a pound weight of pure silver and both are symbolised by abbreviations of the Latin libra; lb. for weight, £ for money (the cross-bar was a later addition to upper-case L in Gothic script).

The weight and metal composition of our coins have changed over time and today’s coins are of base metal. One reason for this was that silversmiths in the past would melt down silver coins, taking them out of circulation. Also, people were prone to chipping bits off before spending the coins!

UK legal tender consists of the Bank of England £5, £10 and £20 polymer notes and the £50 paper notes (polymer from 2021), and the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 coins produced by Royal Mint Ltd. By law, payment of large amounts using only the smaller value coins is prohibited; although providing a good publicity stunt in certain circumstances, this would generally be most unreasonable. It is much better to take collections of coins to the bank for crediting to your account and many banks have special machines for this.

(Image [cropped]: hitthatswitch at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Royal Mail completed its privatisation process in 2015, but it had been a state-run organisation for the previous five hundred years and indeed it was the first business to be controlled by Government. During this long history it has been the subject of a few hundred laws, sometimes directly as in the Post Office Acts starting in 1660 or at other times indirectly, where the national postal service was providing a facility for something else, such as the Parliamentary Voters Registration Act of 1843.

King Henry VIII saw the need for a postal system for his court in the early 1500s. This led to the setting up of the first half dozen postal towns, with the main Post Office being in London. With the advent of the mail-carrying coach-and-horses in 1784, innkeepers began to double up as postmasters. Then in the 1830s the railway revolution had a huge impact on the post’s speed and reliability.

Royal Mail has added many new services over the years, including online postage in 2004. Many predicted that in the computer age Royal Mail would see a decline in sales, but any drop in the posting of letters has been balanced by the increase in parcel despatches from internet commerce.

(Image: Chris Millard at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

MOT stands for ‘Ministry of Transport’, which, in 1960, introduced the annual safety tests for cars and other vehicles using public roads. Those first tests were pretty basic compared to today’s, but with seven thousand deaths on the roads each year, something had to be done. The test was known then as the ‘ten-year test’ as it applied only to vehicles over ten years old. The cost was fifteen shillings (75p).

The modern MOT takes 45-60 minutes as it covers so much, including lights, horn, wiring, steering, suspension, tyres, body condition, mirrors, emissions, windscreen…. the list goes on. Some drivers use this thoroughness as an alternative to regular maintenance inspections. Many drivers book a service and MOT together and some garages offer to do the MOT first, then repair anything that fails, followed by a free re-test.

There are some vehicles which are exempt from the MOT requirement, e.g. tractors, police cars and mobility scooters, but generally all vehicles over three years old (four in N.Ireland) are legally compelled to have a valid MOT. Without this, the vehicle cannot be driven on the road and you cannot buy its road tax. Ultimately, MOTs are invaluable in terms of the lives they save.

(Image: P.L. Chadwick at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The role of coroner was first established in England in 1194. The equivalent in Scotland is a ‘procurator fiscal’. Coroners’ Courts are outside of the regular court system and are funded by local authorities. The Coroners & Justice Act 2009 and The Notification of Deaths Regulations 2019 are the relevant laws, along with guidance from the Chief Coroner and the Lord Chancellor.

A coroner is a barrister, solicitor or doctor who considers the evidence concerning sudden or unnatural death and gives a verdict on the cause and, if appropriate, recommendations to other organisations involved. Just under half of all deaths are reported to a Senior Coroner for reasons that include suspicion of poisoning, trauma, self-harm, neglect and mis-use of drugs, or while in police custody, prison, at work or undergoing a medical procedure, or where the cause is unknown.

Court inquests are required in around 16% of these cases. The inquest is non-adversarial and can give the grieving family closure. The facts of the case are reviewed in the court, including the results of any post-mortem, and witnesses give their statements on oath. There is not usually a jury and the family is on the front row and able to ask their own questions.

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The Family Law Reform Act of 1969 lowered the traditional ‘age of majority’ from twenty-one to eighteen, as from 1st January 1970. Until then, twenty-one was regarded as the age at which you became an adult, symbolised by being given a key to the family home, as in the popular song:-

Twenty-one today,
Twenty-one today,
(S)He’s got the key of the door,
Never been twenty-one before,
And Pa says I can do as I like,
So shout ‘Hip-hip hooray’,
(S)He’s a jolly good fellow,
Twenty-one today.

This is why many 21st birthday cards and fancy gifts feature a key and it is still seen as a milestone birthday, especially as it is the age at which most university students finish their degrees.

At twenty-one, you can apply to adopt a child, supervise a learner driver (if you have held a full driving licence for three years), apply for various flying licences, and apply for a provisional HGV, bus or coach licence. There remain a few transitionary stages: you move up to the 21-24 age band for the Minimum Wage; and if sentenced to prison, you will be sent to one that holds people aged 18-25, rather than a full adult prison.

(Image: Oberholster Venita at pixabay.com)

Before the County Courts were created in 1846, there was a rather unsatisfactory system of ‘circuit’ judges visiting different parts of the country outside of their London base in order to dispense justice. The visits were short, infrequent, expensive and inconvenient, so it was decided to set up the County Courts.

There are ninety-two of these courts in various English and Welsh cities and towns, some of them in the same building as a Magistrates Court or a Crown Court. The County Courts deal exclusively with civil cases, not criminal. Many cases such as probate, divorce and family issues can be heard in private in the judge’s chambers.

Civil law cases concern infringement of the rights of an individual person or company by another person or company, meaning that matters such as breach of contract, negligence, small claims and trespass all come under their jurisdiction. With the rise of the ‘consumer society’ has come the pressure to take out loans and credit. As this has increased over the years, so has the workload of the County Courts, since one of their main case types is insolvency. Court bailiffs are employed to pursue repayment of debts.

(Image: Steven Haslington at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)