Summary Justice In and Out of Court: The Police Foundation's John Harris Memorial Lecture
Speech by Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
08/07/2011
"It is 650 years since Parliament embodied the magnificent concept of our Plantagenet Kings into statute. This was the "King’s Peace". The Justices of the Peace Act 1361 provided:
"…they shall have power to restrain the offenders, rioters, and all other barators and to pursue, arrest, take and chastise them according to their trespass or offence; and to cause them to be imprisoned and duly punished accordingly to the law and customs of the realm, and accordingly to that which to them shall seem best to do by their discretions and good advisement…
To the intent that the people be not by such rioters or rebels troubled nor endamaged, nor the peace blemished, nor…other passing by the highways of the realm disturb nor put in the peril which may happen…"
