А. Г. Минченков. «Glimpses of Britain. Учебное пособие»

The Legal System

There is no written constitution in Britain. The ‘unwritten’ constitution consists of statute law, or Acts of Parliament, and common law, or court precedents (laws as interpreted in the courts) collected over the centuries.

Until recently the supreme judicial authority for England and Wales was the House of Lords, which was the ultimate Court of Appeal for all cases except those concerning the interpretation and application of European Community law. Now the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has been created under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to take over the judicial functions of the Law Lords in the House of Lords. The Supreme Court will be the final court of appeal in all matters under the four legal systems in the United Kingdom (English law, Welsh law, Scottish law and Northern Irish law). The new Supreme Court will be located in the building of Middlesex Guildhall, in Parliament Square, Westminster. The building is expected to reopen after renovation in 2008.

In order to avoid confusion, the several superior courts of England and Wales known as the Supreme Court of Judicature (created in the 1870s under the Judicature Acts) will now be called the Senior Courts of England and Wales. As before, they will consist of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice (dealing with civil cases) and the Crown Court (dealing with criminal cases).

The High Court of Justice is the supreme civil court and has 3 divisions:

•the Chancery Division that deals with equity, bankruptcy and interpretation of wills

•the Queen’s Bench Division dealing with commercial and maritime law, breach of contracts, serious personal injury

•the Family Division that deals with family law, adoption and divorce

Civil cases relate to private arguments between people or organizations. The participants of a civil case (parties to a lawsuit) are the defendant and the claimant (plaintiff). Most minor civil cases (involving amounts of less than Ј5,000) are settled in the Small Claims Court. One can, for example, sue a shop for a faulty CD player. One goes to the court, which issues a summons. The owner of the shop (the defendant) is then supposed to come to court. In the Small Claims Court the case is heard by a district judge. If the judge decides that the claimant is right he or she can award costs and compensation (damages).

For more serious matters (a defective car) one goes to a county court, which has a circuit judge or a recorder assigned to it. In a county court one may be represented by a solicitor or a barrister. If the case is very serious (somebody has been badly injured as a result of a road accident) it is heard before a High Court judge. Appeals from the High Court are heard in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), and may go on to the Supreme Court.

Criminal cases relate to somebody breaking the country’s laws. The prosecution is initiated in the name of the Crown. The decision to prosecute rests mostly with the Crown Prosecution Service headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, who works under the guidance of the Attorney-General. Certain serious offences require the Attorney-General’s consent for prosecution. The Crown Prosecution Service sends barristers to prosecute in crown courts and solicitors in magistrates’ courts. When an alleged offence is serious, the suspect may be remanded in custody and await trial in prison, or they may be remanded on bail and then released on bail: the judge decides an amount of money that must be paid by, or on behalf of, the defendant so as to ensure that they return to the court for trial later.

Magistrates’ courts usually consist of three unpaid lay magistrates (Justices of the Peace or JPs), who are advised on points of law and procedure by a special legally qualified clerk. JPs are ordinary citizens chosen from the community and appointed by the Lord Chancellor on the recommendation of advisory committees of local people. The magistrates’ powers are limited: they

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may not impose a sentence of more than 6 months’ imprisonment or a fine of more than Ј5,000. They may refer cases requiring a heavier penalty to a crown court.

The crown court sits in about 90 centres and is presided over by High Court Judges (in the case of serious crimes like murder), full-time circuit judges and part-time recorders (hearing most of the cases), sitting with a jury of 12 people (jurors). Crown courts also hear appeals from magistrates’ courts (against conviction or sentence). Appeals from a crown court are made to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) presided over by the Lord Chief Justice, and may then go on to the Supreme Court (on a point of law mostly).

In a crown court the verdict is reached by a jury, randomly selected from the local electoral rolls. The judge makes sure that the trial is properly conducted, i.e. that the counsels for the prosecution and defence comply with the rules regarding the evidence that they produce and the examination of witnesses. The jury are helped to reach the verdict by the judge’s summary of the evidence, which indicates relevant points of law and the main issues. The person is presumed to be innocent unless the prosecution can prove guilt ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’. At the end of the trial the defendant is found guilty (convicted) or not guilty (acquitted) by the jury. If convicted, the defendant is sentenced by the judge. Punishment may take the form of a fine, imprisonment, community service, or probation under the supervision of a professional probation officer. The death penalty was abolished in 1969.

There are three types of offences:

•summary offences (95 % of all offences), such as, for example, motoring offences. These are dealt with in magistrates’ courts

•offences triable either way (e.g. theft) when the choice of court belongs to the defendant

•indictable offences (e.g. robbery, murder, embezzlement) tried only by a crown court

The age of criminal responsibility is ten. Cases involving children under 18 are heard in youth courts – specially constituted magistrates’ courts, which sit apart from other courts. Youth courts decide whether the child should continue to live within the family, subject to supervision, or whether he or she should be taken into local authority care and have foster parents or a community home. Such offenders normally attend special schools. Some are required to attend special centres on Saturdays or to do community service.

There are two kinds of lawyers in Britain – solicitors and barristers. A solicitor normally appears in a magistrates’ court, but only barristers may fight a case in crown courts and the High Court. Besides, only solicitors may deal directly with the public. A defendant cannot approach a barrister, a solicitor chooses which barrister to invite; the first time a person meets a barrister is on the day of the trial. The professional body of solicitors is the Law Society (established in 1825), while the barristers form the Bar. There are about 5,000 barristers. To become a barrister, a candidate must obtain entrance to one of the four Inns of Court, law colleges which date from the Middle Ages, complete the legal training and pass the Bar examination. A successful barrister may be appointed a Queen’s Counsel – QC – (KC in the reign of a king), known within the profession as ‘taking silk’. There is no special training for judges in England. All judges are appointed by the Lord Chancellor from among experienced barristers.

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Historic Country Houses and British Heritage

Until the early nineteenth century country houses were private homes of the aristocracy, admired as art objects principally by their owners and the owners’ guests. Their role in the national heritage began when the market for cultural products formerly confined to a small йlite began to expand rapidly. In the early nineteenth century the older stately homes (mostly Tudor and Jacobean) began to be popularized as symbols of the common national history shared by all classes, in contrast to eighteenth century classical houses (un-English and cosmopolitan) that represented exclusive aristocratic culture. The older houses were viewed not as private homes but as common property. The owners basically agreed with this view and indulged a rapidly growing audience for national history in its desire to write, read about and visit the country houses. Interestingly, few statelyhome owners at that time needed or asked for any financial contribution from the public that came to see their homes. Only 3 or 4 houses in the country charged an entrance fee.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century (after 1867) the situation changed. The first important change was in the popular attitudes. Commerce, urbanization, mass consumption and leisure gave rise to new identities. The majority of the public (contemptuously called ‘the philistines’ by art lovers) embraced the values of individuality, modernity and the world of goods. There was a marked shift of emphasis from history and Englishness to democratic cosmopolitanism. The country house was no longer the favoured holiday site; it was replaced by a seaside resort, with the richest indeed going abroad (to Nice, Venice, and Biarritz).

At the same time the economic and political power of the landed aristocracy suffered crushing blows. There was a deep agricultural depression that began in 1874 and lasted a generation. For many landlords mere economic survival became the prime imperative. Grain prices fell by 50 %, and stayed like that till the late 1890s. The 1894 budget introduced the death duty on fortunes worth more than Ј1mln. It increased progressively with the size of an estate; the maximum rate was 8 %. In general, the owners tended to preserve land at the expense of houses, and especially their contents. Large houses were ruinously expensive to maintain. Many houses were withdrawn from the public sphere. When buyers could be found, houses were sold. Those that were retained became more like homes: the owners introduced electric lighting, central heating, lifts and modern kitchens. There was a far livelier market in fine art and rare books, bought by rich Americans and Germans. Between 1882 and 1914 there were enormous auctions and private sales of collections. Britain at that time was a free-trade nation, no export license was required, and so much went abroad.

The philistinism of the majority prevented the government from acting as a setter of national norms and standards in culture (as it was done in France, Italy and Germany). Both central and local government failed to intervene directly to save historic buildings and art objects. There was just a small aesthetic minority (’the aesthetes’), for whom heritage was important. They denounced the owners of the houses, calling them ‘barbarians’ for modernizing the old houses and putting profit and comfort before anything else. In January 1895 a charitable trust was set up that could hold buildings and land in the public interest: the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Its first Chairman was the Duke of Westminster. The National Trust accepted gifts and bought by public subscription. Before WWI it acquired about 60 separate properties, mostly in the Lake District and Surrey.

After WWI the public valuation of the country house continued to deteriorate. Countryhouse visiting virtually stopped as owners closed, abandoned or demolished their houses. Cultural leadership no longer came naturally to the aristocrat; it seemed a waste of time, money, or even a dangerous concession to the mob. In the period 1914–1939 many of the aristocracy withdrew from the land and paved the way for the urbanization of the countryside. Many great estates broke up. The historic houses were now obstacles to the urban middle classes’ occupation of the countryside. Land

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sales had begun before the war, and accelerated after it. Many landowners sold their estates to their former tenants. About 20 % of the landowners fell out of the class altogether. In extreme cases entire counties were transformed (one third of Derbyshire was broken up in 1930). The cities flowed into the country; millions of urban English people took an almost physical possession of the countryside. Many aristocrats sold their estates because they could find better investments. However, it was almost impossible to sell a big house, no matter how historical. Historic houses could be bought for a song. Hundreds of them (~7 %) were demolished; many were put to institutional use, i.e. turned into public schools, colleges, youth hostels. In 1936 the Earl of Derby converted the ruins of his castle into a zoo. Three quarters of all the Victorian open houses were closed by the early 1930s, including such famous ones as Blenheim, Woburn, and Belvoir.

During, and sometimes even before WWII, when private property was no longer so sacrosanct, the more farsighted owners struck private bargains with the government to secure relatively friendly uses for their houses: as schools, government departments or store houses for treasures from national art collections. The worst fate befell the houses that had to accommodate troops (the owners often remained in residence, occupying one or two rooms). In that decade hardly any owner felt that there was a future in country-house life. Actually, younger owners often experienced relief, for their financial liabilities vanished together with the houses. In 1945–1950 78 houses were demolished, and no fewer than 204 in 1950–1955. Twice as many houses were sold as demolished after the war. The vast majority of these sales were to institutions, for there was a great demand for schools, colleges and hospitals in the post-war years.

During and just after the war the fortunes of the country houses were, perhaps, the lowest, but in the 1950s they began to improve, both in terms of the public attitudes and the financial situation. In the Finance Act 1951 passed by the Labour government the contents of historic houses bequeathed to the National Trust were exempted from death duty (that went up to 60–70 % after the war). Historic Buildings Councils for England, Wales and Scotland were established that advised the government on the payment of maintenance grants to the owners of historic houses (Ј250,000 a year). The condition was that the houses that received grants must be open to the public at least one day a week in the summer.

The 1950–60s were a period of soaring land prices, during which many landowners became multimillionaires. The value of works of art also increased dramatically. Owners could sell off pieces of collections and get huge sums to pay tax bills, or invest in the landed estate. After 1965 they could also offer works of art in direct payment of death duties. Many families returned to their houses, although the reoccupation proceeded cautiously. In some houses tourism now provided money for maintenance. The National Trust was also opening the houses it had acquired during the war. The availability of repair and maintenance grants from the Historic Buildings Councils offered another incentive to open private homes. Thus from around 1950 the number of houses open to the public increased sharply. In the early 1960s there were already about 300 open houses: half of them were private, one quarter belonged to the National Trust and one quarter were institution or publicly owned.

1974 was a turning point. An all-party group ‘Heritage in Danger’ was formed to fight the wealth tax. The 1975 budget conceded exemptions from tax for important works of art, outstanding buildings and stretches of land. The owners were allowed to put houses, collections and estate lands into charitable trusts free of capital taxes so long as they were used to keep up property open to the public. These trusts (as it were, miniature National Trusts) were often effectively controlled by the family, but treated as public bodies with the owners serving as custodians or trustees. In a trust the preservation of the house and its collections comes first, the owners’ convenience – second.

In 1984 English heritage was set up, an organization partly funded by the Government. Its tasks include looking after historic buildings and monuments in public ownership and making them more entrepreneurial, and administering Historic Buildings Council grants more efficiently.

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The membership of the National Trust has been steadily growing since the late 19th century when it was established. While in the 1920s, for example, there were 1,000 members, now there are over 2 million. It is the most powerful non-governmental body in Europe.

At present more than 350 houses are open. At the top of the list come privately owned houses that form Historic Houses Association (HHA). These are in the best condition. Then there are National Trust houses that people can visit. Quite a few of the historic buildings and monuments belonging to English Heritage are in a fairly poor condition; some of them are just shells. Yet, most of them are regularly open to visitors. Finally, there are houses owned by institutions: schools, colleges, museums. Warwick Castle, for example is owned by Madame Tussaud’s museum; Harlaxton Manor – by an American university. Most of such buildings are not regularly open (Harlaxton is open only two days a year); some of them are closed to visitors altogether.

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