2. For the counties of London and Middlesex and certain adjoining districts, a special court of assize known as the central criminal court sits monthly.
3. In all counties and many boroughs the justices of the peace sit quarterly or oftener under the commission of the peace to try the minor indictable offences. (See [Quarter Sessions, Court of].)
4. The High Court of Justice in the king’s bench division tries a few special offences in its original jurisdiction, and where justice requires may transfer indictments from other courts for trial before itself.
5. The court of criminal appeal has been instituted by the Criminal Appeal Act 1907; to it all persons convicted on indictment have a right of appeal. (See [Appeal].)
The substantive law as to crime applies in England to all persons except the reigning sovereign, and criminal procedure is the same for all subjects alike, except in the case of peers or peeresses charged with felony, who have the right of trial by their peers in the House of Lords if it be sitting, or in the court of the lord high steward.
There are in England no courts of a special character, such as exist in some foreign countries, for the determination of disputes between the governing classes themselves or with the governed classes, whether of a civil or Special tribunals. criminal character. There are a few exceptional courts with criminal jurisdiction. The court of chivalry, which used to punish offences committed within military lines outside the kingdom, is obsolete. Special tribunals exist for trying naval or military offences committed by members of the navy and army, but those members are not exempt from being tried by the ordinary tribunals for offences against the ordinary law, as though they were civilians. The naval courts can be held only on board a ship, and can as a general rule try only persons entered on the books of a king’s ship. The military courts can only try persons who are actually members of the army at the time, and their authority is annually renewed by parliament, in consequence of the jealousy still felt against the trial of any man except by the ordinary courts of law. Military and naval courts can try in any part of the world, and whenever the forces are in active service can try followers of the camp as if they were actual members of the forces. (See [Military Law]; [Martial Law].)
The ecclesiastical courts, which were formerly very powerful in England, and punished persons for various offences, such as perjury, swearing, and sexual offences, have now almost fallen into disuse. Their authority over Ecclesiastical courts. Protestant dissenters from the established church was taken away by statute; their authority over lay members of the Church of England has disappeared by disuse. Occasionally suits are instituted in them against the clergy for offences either against morality or against doctrine or ritual. In these cases their sentences are enforced by penalties, such as suspension, or deprivation of benefice, or by imprisonment; which has replaced the old punishment of excommunication.
A system of procedure, with the judicial machinery required to work it, may be created either by the direct legislative action of the supreme power or by custom and the action of the courts. Both at Rome and in England it was Procedure. through usage and by the courts themselves that the earlier system was slowly moulded: both at Rome and in England it was direct legislation that established the later system. (See Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 1901, ii. 334.)
The characteristics of English criminal procedure which most distinguish it from the procedure of other countries are as follows:—
1. It is litigious or accusatory and not inquisitorial (Stephen, Prel. View Cr. Law). It is for the prosecutor to prove by evidence the commission of the alleged offence. No power exists to interrogate the accused unless he consents to be sworn as a witness in his own defence, which since 1898 he may do. The right to cross-examine him even when he is so sworn is limited by law, with the object of excluding inquiry into his past character or into past offences not relevant to the particular charge on which he is being tried.