246 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

at one time. On the criminal side, there was no appeal from the
High Court until an Act of iyyj provided that the Lord Chief
Justice and a varying number of King's Bench judges should sit
as a Court of Criminal Appeal. Unless the appeal is brought on
a point of law only, permission to appeal must be obtained either
from the Court of Criminal Appeal or the judge who tried the
case. The Court of Criminal Appeal does not often reverse a
verdict but frequently reduces the sentence imposed; it has also
the power, less often exercised, to increase the sentence.

The highest of all courts is the House of Lords, which for
this purpose means not the whole House, but the Lord Chancellor,
the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary,1 and peers who have held high
judicial offices. Since this court may sit when Parliament is
prorogued or dissolved, it is clearly distinct from the House of
Lords as part of the Legislature. It hears appeals from the Court
of Appeal, and even from the Court of Criminal Appeal, if the
Attorney-General certifies that a point of law of great public
importance is involved.

The House of Lords as a whole retains one legal function,
that of trying persons who are impeached, i.e., accused by the
Commons before the Lords.2 Historically associated with
impeachment is the process of attainder—the passing of a bill
in the regular manner through both Houses, to declare a particular
person guilty of treason or felony, and impose a capital sentence.
Neither impeachment or attainder have been used for over a
century, and they have little to recommend them. They were
employed against persons whom Parliament believed to be
dangerous, but against whom there was not sufficient precise
evidence to secure conviction by an ordinary court. Attainder is
not a judicial, but a legislative process; it is indeed, little short
of legalised murder.
While there is no court above the House of Lords, there are

* See Ch. X.

* The right of Peers accused of felony to be tried by the House of
Lords was abolished in 1936.