Judiciary of England and Wales
Open-knowledge reference entry
There are various levels of judiciary in England and Wales—different types of courts have different styles of judges. They also form a strict hierarchy of importance, in line with the order of the courts in which they sit, so that judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales are given more weight than district judges sitting in the County Court and magistrates' courts. On 1 April 2020 there were 3,174 judges in post in England and Wales. Some judges with United Kingdom-wide jurisdiction also sit in England and Wales, particularly Justices of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and members of the tribunals judiciary.
By statute, judges are guaranteed continuing judicial independence.
There have been multiple calls from both Welsh academics and politicians, however, for a distinct Welsh criminal justice system.
The following is a list of the various types of judges who sit in the courts of England and Wales:
Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor
Since 3 April 2006, the Lord Chief Justice has been the overall head of the judiciary. Previously they were second to the Lord Chancellor, but the judicial functions of that office were transferred to the Lord Chief Justice under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The Lord Chief Justice is also the president of the courts and holds, amongst some 400 statutory functions, positions such as the head of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal. Historically they were also President of the King's Bench Division of the High Court, but on becoming head of the judiciary that responsibility was transferred to a new office.
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This entry incorporates text from “Judiciary of England and Wales” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.