The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales and the President of the Courts of England and Wales.
The officeholder until 2005 could be viewed as the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, as surpassed by the Lord Chancellor who normally sat in the higher court. Nowadays, however, the holder outranks all judges of the United Kingdom save the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which disempowered the Lord Chancellor judicially and altered the duties of the Lord Chief Justice. The Lord Chief Justice ordinarily serves as President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal and Head of Criminal Justice, meaning its technical processes within the legal domain, but under the 2005 Act can appoint another judge to these positions.
The equivalent in Scotland is the Lord President of the Court of Session, who also holds the post of Lord Justice-General in the High Court of Justiciary. The equivalent in Northern Ireland is the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, successor to the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland of the pre-Partition era.
As to a range of jurisdictions including England and Wales to which a further appeal can be sought (permission of either court is needed), is the senior figure of President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, in a court that determines cases from the relevant Court of Appeal using the relevant jurisdiction's laws and contributes to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and hears fewer cases than the Court of Appeal.
The current Lord Chief Justice is Lord Burnett of Maldon, who assumed the role on 2 October 2017.
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