English legal system

The preparation of a new edition of this work has involved considerable revision of Part V in the light of the many and varied provisions of the Criminal Law Act 1977. In addition complete resetting of the text has enabled me to incorporate sections dealing with such matters as the Euro pean Convention on Human Rights, Codes of Practice, the principle of open justice, domestic courts, the Report of the Royal Commission on Legal Services, Anton Piller orders, Mareva injunctions, judicial review, bail and sentencing in magistrates' courts, which were barely touched upon, in so far as they were dealt with at all, in earlier editions. The result of these and other additions has been to increase the size of the text by about 70 pages but I hope and believe that this has been justified in that each Part, and in particular civil procedure, criminal procedure and evidence, is designed to be sufficiently comprehensive and detailed to serve at least as an introductory text to students of those individual topics.

As in previous editions I have sought to concentrate upon those aspects of the various subjects which seem to me to give rise to most difficulty in practice and to illustrate the statements in the text by reference to the most recent authorities. Reference to about 150 new cases will be found. and to (I hope) all of the relevant new statutory material, notably the Bail Act 1976, Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, Administration of Jus tice Act 1977, Criminal Law Act 1977, Domestic Proceedings and Magi strates' Courts Act 1978, Interpretation Act 1978, Oaths Act 1978, Arbitra tion Act 1979, Criminal Evidence Act 1979, Justices of the Peace Act 1979 and Legal Aid Act 1979.