Heads of Division
There are four Heads of Divisions aide from the Lord Chief Justice — the Master of the Rolls, the President of the Queen's Bench Division, the President of the Family Division and the Chancellor of the High Court.
The Master of the Rolls is head of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal. The other Heads are in charge of the three divisions of the High Court.
The Chancellor of the High Court is President of the Chancery Division of the High Court. Until 2006 this role was nominally held by the Lord Chancellor, but was in practice delegated to the Vice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor was renamed Chancellor of the High Court when the Lord Chancellor's judicial role was abolished.
The Heads of Division are referred to in law reports as "Smith MR", "Smith P", "Smith P", and "Smith C" respectively. Vice-Chancellors from pre-2006 Chancery cases were referred to as "Smith VC".
In court the Heads of Division wear a black damask gown with gold lace along with a short wig during criminal cases and the black civil gown with gold tabs during civil cases. Ceremonially, the Heads of Division wear red gowns with white trim along with full wigs except for the Master of the Rolls who wears the black damask gown with gold lace and full wig.
Read more about this topic: English Judges
Famous quotes containing the words heads of, heads and/or division:
“You don’t know what you might be if you would look beyond the ball, the opera, the fashion-plate—and right over the heads of the perfumed, mustached bipeds who call themselves men and worship at your feet.”
—Mattie Chappelle, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Revolution (April 28, 1870)
“Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)