Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/820

 806 V. BENCH AND BAR tern one supreme Court of Judicature — a supreme court which, operating under convenient arrangements and with a sufficient number of judges, shall exercise one single undi- vided jurisdiction, and shall unite within itself all the juris- dictions of all the separate superior courts of law and equity now in existence." ^ Accordingly the Curia Regis of the Norman kings was taken as a model, and all the existing courts were consolidated into one Supreme Court of Judica- ture.^ This Supreme Court was divided into two sections, the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal. The High Court is a court of first instance, exercising general jurisdic- tion in civil and criminal matters. It consisted originally of five divisions, corresponding to the old courts, of which it was made up. But in 1881 the Common Pleas and Exchequer were finally abolished; and by subsequent legislation the Court of the Master of the Rolls was likewise abolished, and that judge was placed at the head of a division of the Court of Appeal. The court now sits in three divisions: King's Bench, Chancery, and Probate, Divorce and Admiralty. The business assigned to each division corresponds to its ancient jurisdiction; but the changes effected by the Judicature Act are these: any judge may sit in any court belonging to any division, or may take the place of any other judge, and any relief which might be given by any of the courts whose jurisdiction is now vested in the supreme court may be given by any judge or division of the supreme court, and any ground of claim or defence which would have been recognized in any of the old courts may be recognized by any division of the new court. Where the rules of equity, com- mon law and admiralty conflict, equity prevails in the absence of specific provisions. Besides this uniform administration of the principles of law and equity, the act also provided a common and simple code of procedure. The main character- istics of this procedure are similar to those which have iong ^The first Judicature Act was passed in 1873, and was designed to take effect in 1874; but this not being: practicable its operation vas postponed until 1875, when a second act was passed, and the judges took their seats as members of the Supreme Court.
 * Hansard's Pari. Debates, vol. 214, pp. 331, 337,