ABSTRACT
Maintaining the law is something all governments seek to do efficiently and, in most countries, fairly. Back in Britain’s early history, Henry II, for example, saw it as his duty to reform England’s legal system and establish a national circuit of county courts. This chapter considers how the judiciary fits into and serves the political system and provides a thumbnail sketch of the highly complex British system of judges and courts. Legal systems and legal reasoning involve attempts to draw up general rules and procedures to govern human interaction. Judges have autonomy in that they have virtual security of tenure: it takes both Houses of parliament to sack one and they receive their salaries on a permanent, not renewable, basis. The High Court is divided into three: Queen’s Bench; Equity; and domestic cases (Family Division). The three divisions are headed by judges, assisted by a total of 80 other judges.
