Home > Judge

A judge or justice is an appointed or elected official who presides over a court. The powers, functions, and training of judges varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

A judge can also be simply a qualified person who evaluates and passes judgement on anything; for example, a judge at a county fair might award prizes to the best cattle or best home-made jam; a judge at a dog show determines which of several dogs best meets the standards for the breed.

1 Judges in the Legal System

Judges are considered to be the leaders of one of the three branches of government , the judiciary. In a democratic country, a judges powers and influences are supposed to operate independently of any of the other branches of government.

In the USA, judges are not trained separately from lawyers and are generally appointed or elected from among practicing attorneys. In most civil law jurisdictions judges go to special schools to be trained after graduating with a legal degree from a university; after such training they become investigative judges, see inquisitorial system. In common law countries, judges usually operate according to the adversarial system of justiceJustice is a concept involving the fair and moral treatment of all persons, especially in law. It is often seen as the continued effort to do what is "right. In most of all cases "right" is determined by either the majority or logic. If a person lives und under the applicable rules of civil procedureCivil procedure is the written set of rules that sets out the process that courts will follow when hearing cases of a civil nature (a "civil action"). These rules explain how a lawsuit must be commenced, what kind of service of process is required, the ty. Many judges from all over the world continue to wear wigs; a tradition imported from the BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly legal system In the common law system, when there is a jury trialThe jury trial (not to be confused with grand jury proceedings) is a process by which the "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with, the judge generally decides issues of law, i.e. which law applies and what the law requires, while the juryIn the law, a jury is a body of persons convened to render a verdict, or true answer or decision, on a question officially submitted to them, as on the question of a defendant's guilt in a jury trial in a court of law. The members of a jury are known as j decides factFact is the following: Generally a fact is something that exists or has existed, of evidence. In science, a fact is data supported by a scientific experiment. In law, a fact is a statement which is found to be true by a "tryer of fact," sometimes a jury,s, i.e who did what, who is guilty, what is the amount of damages. Historically in EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se in the middle ages, juries often stated the law by consensus or majority and the judge applied it to the facts as he saw them. This practice generally no longer exists. Notably, while common law jurisdictions retain the jury system, civil law has often abandoned the jury in favor of a judge-based system.