Judiciary of England and Wales - Heads of Division

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:  Judiciary Of England And Wales

Famous quotes containing the words heads of, heads and/or division:

    He had first discovered a propensity for savagery in the acrid lavatories of a minor English public school where he used to press the heads of the new boys into the ceramic bowl and pull the flush upon them to drown their gurgling protests.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    We found ourselves always torn between the mothers in our heads and the women we needed to become simply to stay alive.With one foot in the past and another in the future, we hobbled through first love, motherhood, marriage, divorce, careers, menopause, widowhood—never knowing what or who we were supposed to be, staking out new emotional territory at every turn—like pioneers.
    Erica Jong (20th century)

    Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capitalism is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)