AS LawA (small) taste of things to come

Requirements...

No Coursework

100% Examination(All on one day!)

Homework

Essays

Attendance

Independent Study

Lot of factual information!

C+ in English Language

Content...G151: English Legal SystemPolice PowersBail & Pre-trialCourts and Routes of AppealSentencingJudgesLegal ProfessionCivil Courts & ADR

G152: Sources of LawLegislation & Delegated LegislationPrecedentStatutory InterpretationEULaw Reform

The Basics of The Course

To start with... How much do you know?

Below are 8 people who you should all know and which we will come across over the next year... Who are they?

?5

2

3

4

1 6

7

8

And now...

Round Two

How many countries are in the

EU?

At what age are you criminally responsible?

What is the maximum

sentence an adult can receive in England and

Wales?

At what age will you go to an adult prison?

What is the current prison population?

What is the highest court in

England and Wales?

What colour is the House of

Commons?

Unit One

G151: English Legal System

Tyrone, aged 16, has missed the last bus and has to walk home. It is 2am and a police officer driving past in a police car sees Tyrone and stops. The police officer tells Tyrone to empty his pockets and Tyrone refuses. The police officer then grabs Tyrone’s shoulder, pushes him into the police car and takes him to the local police station.

Is this legal?

Over the next year, some of your answers will be to problems,

where you will have to apply the law that you have learnt to a short problem question and then decide

whether or not it is legal...

What do you think of Tyrone?

Unit One

G151: English Legal System

You will also have to assess the law and explain what you think... And more importantly

why you think it!

Put these ‘murders’ in

order of seriousness.

timesonline.co.uk -6th August 2004

The Baby Killing: a 19-year-old man shakes his young baby to death for constantly crying and disturbing him on the eve of a job interview.

The Noisy Neighbour: a young man is constantly kept awake by a neighbour playing loud music. The night before a job interview the music is on again. He goes next door and fatally stabs his neighbour.

The Contract Killing: a man agrees carries out a killing for a contract worth £5,000.

The Argument: An argument between two men develops into a fight in which one man punches the other. The other man pulls out a knife and stabs his attacker.

The Mercy Killing: A man who has nursed his terminally ill wife for several years gives in to her requests that he should “put her out of it”, and smothers her with a pillow.

Unit Two:

G152: Sources of Law

Hmmm.. I wonder what it looks like in real life?

Unit Two:

Sources of Law

DPP V Bull (1994) 

Bull was a male prostitute charged with an offence against s1 (1) Street Offences Act 1959. This section states: ‘It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a public place for the purposes of prostitution.’ The Court had to decide whether the words were only meant to apply to women or could also cover male prostitutes. On appeal the prosecution argued that s 1 (1) of the 1959 Act was unclear and drew the court’s attention to a number of points: •Section 1(2) and (3) of the 1959 Act refer to ‘a person’ and ‘anyone’•The Oxford Dictionary (1989) includes within the possible definition for ‘prostitute’, a ‘man who undertakes male homosexual acts for payment.’•Lord Taylor said in an earlier case (R v McFarlane) ‘both the dictionary definitions and the cases show that the crucial feature defining prostitution is the making of an offer of sexual services for reward.’ The appeal court judge decided that the act was only concerned with the female prostitute and stated, ‘It is plain that the mischief that the Act was intended to remedy, was a mischief created by women.’ Because of this it was held the Act only applied to female prostitutes.

In this unit, you will have to look at how the law is

made and interpreted.

This will require you to use

sources, like this one.

 

Bull was a male prostitute charged with an offence against s1 (1) Street Offences Act 1959. This section states: ‘It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a public place for the purposes of prostitution.’ The Court had to decide whether the words were only meant to apply to women or could also cover male prostitutes. On appeal the prosecution argued that s 1 (1) of the 1959 Act was unclear and drew the court’s attention to a number of points: Section 1(2) and (3) of the 1959 Act refer to ‘a person’ and ‘anyone’The Oxford Dictionary (1989) includes within the possible definition for ‘prostitute’, a ‘man who undertakes male homosexual acts for payment.’Lord Taylor said in an earlier case (R v McFarlane) ‘both the dictionary definitions and the cases show that the crucial feature defining prostitution is the making of an offer of sexual services for reward.’ The appeal court judge decided that the act was only concerned with the female prostitute and stated, ‘It is plain that the mischief that the Act was intended to remedy, was a mischief created by women.’ Because of this it was held the Act only applied to female prostitutes.

Why was this a problem in the case?

What things did the court use to try and work out the meaning?

What do you think a mischief is?

What do you think that the judge was trying to do?

How could you change the act to make sure that this didn’t happen again?

Was he right?

Why was it unclear?

Ok, but this is all theory (and old)!

Yes, some law is very old, but law is also constantly changing. Some of the cases below we will look at over the next year...

Girl bullies girl, jumps killed