English Law ex Wiki
English law is the common law legal system governing England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law.

English law has no formal codification: the essence of English common law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts applying statute, and legal precedent (stare precisise ) from previous cases. A decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the highest civil appeal court of the United Kingdom, is binding on every other court.

Some rulings are derived from legislation; others, known as common law, are based on rulings of previous courts. For example, murder is a common law crime rather than one established by an Act of Parliament. Common law can be amended or repealed by Parliament; murder, for example, now carries a mandatory life sentence rather than the death penalty.

 

Corn Laws ex Wiki
QUOTE
The Corn Laws were trade laws designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846.^[1] More simply, to insure that British landowners reaped all the financial profits from farming, the corn laws (which imposed steep import duties) made it too expensive for anyone to import grain from other countries, even when the people of Great Britain and Ireland needed the food (as in times of famine).

The laws were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 (55 Geo. 3 c. 26) and repealed by the Importation Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 22). These laws are often considered as examples of British mercantilism.

The economic issue, in essence, was food prices; the price of grain was central to the price of the most important food staple, bread, and the working man spent much of his wages on bread.

The political issue was a dispute between landowners (a long-established class, who were heavily represented in Parliament) and the new class of manufacturers and industrialists (who were not): the former desired to maximise their profits from agriculture, by keeping the price at which they could sell their grain high; the latter wished to maximise their profits from manufacture, by reducing the wages they paid to their factory workers -- the difficulty being that men could not work in the factories if a factory wage was not enough to feed them and their families; hence, in practice, high grain prices kept factory wages high also.

The Corn Laws enhanced the profits and political power associated with land ownership; their abolition was a significant increase of free trade.
UNQUOTE
Free trade has its enemies. It always has. The welfare of the working man came down the line.

 

Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015     
An update of #PACE 1984? It includes Corrupt or other improper exercise of police powers and privileges, a good one to know about. It is in addition to Misconduct In Public Office.

 

Criminal negligtance 
Is neglitance that is amounts to qualify as mens rea, the guilty mind in proving guilt.

 

 

Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 ex Wiki
The Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c.90) is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that seeks to regulate mercenary activities of British citizens. It received the royal assent on 9 August 1870.

 

Malicious Communications Act 1988 ex Wiki
The Malicious Communications Act 1988 (MCA) is a British Act of Parliament that makes it illegal in England and Wales to "send or deliver letters or other articles for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety". It also applies to electronic communications. It is a weapon used against Free Speech.

The Crown Prosecution Service publishes what it chooses to allege are its Guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media. They tell us that:-
Prosecutors may only start a prosecution if a case satisfies the test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors. This test has two stages: the first is the requirement of evidential sufficiency and the second involves consideration of the public interest.

As far as the evidential stage is concerned, a prosecutor must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction........... A case which does not pass the evidential stage must not proceed, no matter how serious or sensitive it may be.

It has never been the rule that a prosecution will automatically take place once the evidential stage is satisfied. In every case where there is sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution, prosecutors must go on to consider whether a prosecution is required in the public interest. That means letting Pakistanis or Islamics commit crime.

Now they use the Communications Act 2003
In re malicious communications:-
Section 127 of the act makes it an offence to send a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character over a public electronic communications network.^[8] The section replaced section 43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 and is drafted as widely as its predecessor.^[9] The section has controversially been used to prosecute users of social media in cases such as the Twitter Joke Trial and Facebook comments concerning the murder of April Jones.^[10]

 

Manslaughter ex Wiki
Manslaughter is a legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BCE.^[1]

The definition of manslaughter differs among legal jurisdictions.

 

Law of War ex Wiki         
The law of war is a legal term of art which refers to the aspect of public international law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war (jus ad bellum) and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct (jus in bello or international humanitarian law).

Among other issues, modern laws of war address declarations of war, acceptance of surrender and the treatment of prisoners of war; military necessity, along with distinction and proportionality; and the prohibition of certain weapons that may cause unnecessary suffering.^[1]

The law of war is considered distinct from other bodies of law—such as the domestic law of a particular belligerent to a conflict—which may provide additional legal limits to the conduct or justification of war.

 

Misfeasance In Public Office 
Is malpracite by government employees, e.g. senior Manchester policemen pandering to corrupt politicians.

 

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 ex Wiki [ PACE 1984 ]
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) (1984 c. 60) is an Act of Parliament which instituted a legislative framework for the powers of police officers in England and Wales to combat crime, and provided codes of practice for the exercise of those powers.^[1] Part VI ^[2] of PACE required the Home Secretary to issue Codes of Practice governing police powers. The aim of PACE is to establish a balance between the powers of the police in England and Wales and the rights and freedoms of the public.^[1] Equivalent provision is made for Northern Ireland by the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1341). The equivalent in Scots Law is the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. Although PACE is a fairly wide ranging piece of legislation, it mainly deals with police powers to search an individual or premises, including their powers to gain entry to those premises, the handling of exhibits seized from those searches, and the treatment of suspects once they are in custody, including being interviewed. Specific legislation as to more wide ranging conduct of a criminal investigation is contained within the Criminal Procedures and Investigation Act 1996.

 

Public Order Act 1986 includes:-
Parts 3 and 3A- Racial and religious hatred

If the act is intended to stir up racial hatred Part 3 of the Act creates offences of

• use of words or behaviour or display of written material (section 18),
• publishing or distributing written material (section 19),
• public performance of a play (section 20),
• distributing, showing or playing a recording (section 21),
• broadcasting (section 22). or
• possession of racially inflammatory material (section 23)

Acts intended to stir up religious hatred are proscribed in POA Part 3A by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (RRHA) with the insertion of new sections 29A to 29N.^[3] The RRHA bill, which was introduced by Home Secretary David Blunkett, was amended several times in the House of Lords and ultimately the Blair government was forced to accept the substitute words.

To stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation was to be proscribed by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 in POA Part 3A section 29AB.^[4] This legislation was introduced by David Hanson MP.

One impetus for the Act is Jews who want a law against hating them, even when it would be madness not to. It is what they call Anti-Semitism. See e.g. The Historical and Political Context on the point.

 

Race Relations Act 1965
The Race Relations Act 1965 was the first legislation in the United Kingdom to address racial discrimination. The Act outlawed discrimination on the "grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins" in public places.^[1] It also prompted the creation of The Race Relations Board (in 1966), to consider complaints under the Act.^[1]

 

Race Relations Act 1968
The Race Relations Act 1968 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom making it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins. It also created the Community Relations Commission to promote 'harmonious community relations'.^[2]

The Act made amendments to the Race Relations Act 1965. It was superseded (and repealed) by the Race Relations Act 1976. The Act was criticised for poorly translating "new standards of behaviour" into an effective legal document.^[3] The bill which introduced the Act was the focus of one of Enoch Powell's speeches, latterly known as the Rivers of Blood speech.^[4]

 

Race Relations Act 1976
The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. Items that are covered include discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin in the fields of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions.

The Act also established the Commission for Racial Equality with a view to review the legislation, which was put in place to make sure the Act rules were followed.

The Act incorporates the earlier Race Relations Act 1965 and Race Relations Act 1968 and was later amended by the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000, notably including a statutory duty on public bodies to promote race equality, and to demonstrate that procedures to prevent race discrimination are effective.

The Act was repealed by the Equality Act 2010, which supersedes and consolidates previous discrimination law in the UK.

 

Race Relations Amendment Act 2000
The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 was a modification to the earlier Race Relations Act 1976.

 

Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010^[1] is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and has the same goals as the four major EU Equal Treatment Directives, whose provisions it mirrors and implements.^[2]

The primary purpose of the Act is to codify the complicated and numerous array of Acts and Regulations, which formed the basis of anti-discrimination law in Great Britain. This was, primarily, the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major statutory instruments protecting discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age. It requires equal treatment in access to employment as well as private and public services, regardless of the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. In the case of gender, there are special protections for pregnant women. The Act does not guarantee transsexuals' access to gender-specific services where restrictions are "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim".^[3] In the case of disability, employers and service providers are under a duty to make reasonable adjustments to their workplaces to overcome barriers experienced by disabled people. In this regard, the Equality Act 2010 did not change the law. Under s.217, with limited exceptions the Act does not apply to Northern Ireland.

 

• The Race Relations Act 1965
• The Race Relations Act 1968
• The Race Relations Act 1976
• The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000       
• Public Order Act 1986
  

 

The Charter of the Forest and Assize of Clarendon were both mentioned by Mark Steyn in his broadcast about the 'The First Amendment is Not an Area'. All Americans know, or really should that the First Amendment and the Second Amendment to the American Constitution are solidly based on the Laws of England. One is about Free Speech, which is currently, in 2018 under major threat from politicians and the Puppet Masters; the latter is about the Right To Keep And Bear Arms in order to protect ourselves against e.g. Third World parasites and corrupt governments.
PS Mark did not cover the Assize of Northampton.

 

Charter of the Forest ex Wiki  [ 1217 ]
aka
Carta Foresta ex Wiki
The Charter of the Forest of 1217 (Latin: Carta Foresta) is a charter that re-established for free men rights of access to the royal forest that had been eroded by William the Conqueror and his heirs. Many of its provisions were in force for centuries afterwards.^[1] It was originally sealed in England by the young King Henry III, acting under the regency of William Marshall, 1st Earl of Pembroke.^[2] It was in many ways a companion document to the Magna Carta, and redressed some applications of the Anglo-Norman Forest Law that had been extended and abused by William Rufus.

HISTORY
'Forest'^[3] to the Normans meant an enclosed area where the monarch (or sometimes another aristocrat) had exclusive rights to animals of the chase and the greenery ("vert") on which they fed.^[4] It did not consist only of trees, but included large areas of heathland, grassland and wetlands, productive of food, grazing and other resources. Lands became more and more restricted as King Richard and King John designated greater and greater areas as royal forest. At its widest extent, royal forest covered about one-third of the land of southern England.^[4] Thus it became an increasing hardship on the common people to try to farm, forage, and otherwise use the land they lived on.

The Charter of the Forest was first issued on 6 November 1217 at St Paul's Cathedral, London^[5] as a complementary charter to the Magna Carta from which it had evolved. It was reissued in 1225^[6] with a number of minor changes to wording, and then was joined with Magna Carta in the Confirmation of Charters in 1297.^[7]

At a time when royal forests were the most important potential source of fuel for cooking, heating and industries such as charcoal burning, and of such hotly defended rights as pannage (pasture for their pigs), estover (collecting firewood), agistment (grazing), or turbary (cutting of turf for fuel),^[8] this charter was almost unique in providing a degree of economic protection for free men who used the forest to forage for food and to graze their animals. In contrast to Magna Carta, which dealt with the rights of barons, it restored to the common man some real rights, privileges and protections against the abuses of an encroaching aristocracy.^[9] For many years it was regarded as a development of great moment in England's constitutional history, with the great seventeenth-century jurist Sir Edward Coke referring to it along with Magna Carta as the Charters of England's Liberties, and Sir William Blackstone remarking "There is no transaction in the antient part of our English history more interesting and important than the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest".^[4]

 

Assize of Clarendon ex Wiki [ 1166 ]
The Assize of Clarendon was an 1166 act of Henry II of England that began the transformation of English law from such systems for deciding the prevailing party in a case, especially felonies, as trial by ordeal or trial by battle or trial by compurgation to an evidentiary model, in which evidence, inspection, and inquiry was made by laymen, knights or ordinary freemen, under oath. This act greatly fostered the methods that would eventually be known in common law countries as trial by jury.

The Assize of Clarendon did not lead to this change immediately, however; recourse to trial by combat was not officially rescinded until 1819.

The Assize takes its name from Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire, the royal hunting lodge at which it was promulgated.

Problems addressed by the Assize
Henry II inherited (in 1154) the throne of a troubled kingdom. The Crusades were in full swing at the time, a military endeavour that kept noble landowners away from their castles for years at a time. Unoccupied and unclaimed land invited squatters; since there was no central recording office for real property in England at the time, and sorting out who owned what fief was entrusted to human memory, disputes arose when aristocrats returned, or died thousands of miles from home.

Another, even more serious problem requiring royal action was the aftermath of the disastrous civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. The two competing factions had hired mercenary soldiers, and when there was no one left to pay them, many of them took up robbery and other forms of violence as a profession. Crime followed the breakdown of local authority. The quarrel between the King and the Empress created more property troubles; as communities were divided, both factions were happy to reward their supporters with the lands of the local opponents.

Finally, there was the long-standing difficulty involving the Church, which culminated in the murder of Thomas à Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The problem for the King was that the Church acted like an imperium in imperio, a "kingdom within a kingdom", only partially subject to Henry's laws if at all. The Church operated its own court system, which answered not to Henry but to the Pope; it was a large landowner and a powerful vested interest. Henry wished to establish a system of justice that would enlarge the power of the Crown at the expense of the clergy.

The Assizes
Henry therefore promulgated various assizes (i.e. courts that convened in a town periodically, rather than being permanently established). The primary and most general one, the Assize of Clarendon was issued in 1166. Others, the "petty" assizes known respectively as the assize of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancestor, and of darrein presentment gave more specific relief.^[1] The most popular one became the assize of novel disseisin, which in Law French meant something close to the "assize of recent dispossession". Those who had been recently put out of their lands could recover the beneficial use of them by resort to this assize, which led to a then innovative method of trial. Twelve "of the more lawful men" of the locality were summoned by the king's sheriff to determine, upon their own knowledge, who was entitled to the property. This innovative method of proceeding, the origin of the civil petit jury at common law, was aimed at the chaos introduced into property rights by crusade and civil war.

Henry's true measure of cleverness, though, is on display in his innovations in criminal justice. Henry appointed "justices in eyre," the counterpart of circuit judges, to travel from town to town. When they arrived, they too called upon the sheriff to summon twelve free men from the surrounding areas. These twelve free men were a prototype of a grand jury. They were called to report under oath any accusations of crime they were aware of in the community. In theory, then as (in the United States and Liberia) now, the grand jury only brought accusations; it did not find guilt or innocence. The crimes to be investigated were specified in the Assize of Clarendon to be robbery, murder or theft or anyone who had harbored a robber, murderer, or thief. To these the Assize of Northampton (1176) added counterfeiting, forgery, and arson.^[1] Minor crimes were specifically excepted so the new assizes concerned themselves with what would later be labeled "felonies."

This new assize did away with the old form of trial known as "compurgation" in accusations brought by the grand jury. Under compurgation, an accused person who swore he did not commit the crime, and who found a sufficient number of his neighbours to swear that they believed him, was acquitted. Compurgation was no longer available in charges brought by the grand jury.

The only trial available to the defendant remained the traditional trial by ordeal, specifically in the Assize of Clarendon, "the ordeal of water."^[1] Nevertheless, Henry did not put much faith in the results of the ordeal. The unfortunate felon who was convicted through the ordeal was typically executed. However, the Assize of Northampton (1176) provided that the loss of the right hand shall be added to a previous punishment of the loss of one foot for those who failed the ordeal.^[1] This implies that execution was not the inevitable result of conviction. But even if the indicted culprit was acquitted in the ordeal, he was banished from the kingdom. In other words, the proceedings by the grand jury were the actual trial; everyone it accused was punished in some way, and the community was rid of the malefactor, one way or another, as adjudicated "by the oath of twelve knights of the hundred—or, should knights not be present, by the oath of twelve lawful freemen."^[1]

Effects of the Assize
These proceedings did much to transfer power out of the hands of local barons and into the hands of the royal court and its judges. In 1215, moreover, the Fourth Lateran Council forbade clergymen from participating in trial by ordeal. After this date, trials after indictment by the grand jury were conducted by juries as well.

The large changes wrought in the English system of justice did not go unchallenged. The dispute over jurisdiction over the one-sixth of the population of England who were clergy was the chief grievance between the King and Becket. Disgruntled peers attempted to undo Henry's reforms by the Magna Carta forced on King John, but by that time the reforms had progressed too far—and their superiority over the system they had replaced was too obvious—for the forces of reaction to gain much ground. Henry II's reforms laid the groundwork for the system of trials in common law.

 

Assize of Northampton ex Wiki  [ 1166 ]
The Assize of Northampton, largely based on the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, is among a series of measures taken by King Henry II of England that solidified the rights of the knightly tenants and made all possession of land subject to and guaranteed by royal law.

The assize is believed to have been passed at a council held in Northampton in January 1176.

 

Assize of Clarendon ex Britannica
Led to abuses by allowing malicious claims, leading to miscarriages of justice. Whence the Assize of Northampton

 

Assize of Northampton
Assize of Northampton, (1176), group of ordinances agreed upon by King Henry II of England and the magnates in council at Northampton. The ordinances were issued as instructions to six committees of three judges each, who were to visit the six circuits into which England was divided for the purpose. The first part of the assize repeated the substance of some provisions of the Assize of Clarendon (1166), but with several differences. The second part of the assize defined some of the rights of the heir, the lord (or lords), and the widow of a deceased free tenant; its protection of the heir’s right to succeed to land established the possessory action known as mort d’ancestor (i.e., an action to recover lawfully inherited land that had been taken by another before the heir was able to take possession). In line with this, the justices were also ordered to hear pleas of novel disseisin (an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been dispossessed) arising since May 1175 and to try proprietary actions commenced by the king’s writ for the recovery of land held by the service of half a knight’s fee or less.

The rest of the assize’s text contains other instructions to the judges concerning their various administrative, political, judicial, and financial duties.

 

Corrupt or other improper exercise of police powers and privileges       
Section 26
Corrupt or other improper exercise of police powers and privileges 
(1)A police constable listed in subsection (3) commits an offence if he or she—
(a)exercises the powers and privileges of a constable improperly, and
(b)knows or ought to know that the exercise is improper.

(2)A police constable guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years or a fine (or both)...........

(4)For the purposes of this section, a police constable exercises the powers and privileges of a constable improperly if—

(a)he or she exercises a power or privilege of a constable for the purpose of achieving—

(i)a benefit for himself or herself, or

(ii)a benefit or a detriment for another person, and

(b)a reasonable person would not expect the power or privilege to be exercised for the purpose of achieving that benefit or detriment.

(5)For the purposes of this section, a police constable is to be treated as exercising the powers and privileges of a constable improperly in the cases described in subsections (6) and (7).

(6)The first case is where—

(a)the police constable fails to exercise a power or privilege of a constable,

(b)the purpose of the failure is to achieve a benefit or detriment described in subsection (4)(a), and

(c)a reasonable person would not expect a constable to fail to exercise the power or privilege for the purpose of achieving that benefit or detriment.

(7)The second case is where—

(a)the police constable threatens to exercise, or not to exercise, a power or privilege of a constable,

(b)the threat is made for the purpose of achieving a benefit or detriment described in subsection (4)(a), and

(c)a reasonable person would not expect a constable to threaten to exercise, or not to exercise, the power or privilege for the purpose of achieving that benefit or detriment.

(8)An offence is committed under this section if the act or omission in question takes place in the United Kingdom or in United Kingdom waters.

(9)In this section—

“benefit” and “detriment” mean any benefit or detriment, whether or not in money or other property and whether temporary or permanent;

“United Kingdom waters” means the sea and other waters within the seaward limits of the United Kingdom’s territorial sea.

(10)References in this section to exercising, or not exercising, the powers and privileges of a constable include performing, or not performing, the duties of a constable.

(11)Nothing in this section affects what constitutes the offence of misconduct in public office at common law in England and Wales or Northern Ireland.