— Also termed King’s Great Sessions in Wales.
“There was no outcry when, in 1536, ‘the sinister usages and customs’ of the Welsh were abrogated and Welsh subjects were granted the same laws and liberties as the English…. A new system of courts, called the Great Sessions in Wales, was set up. The courts were to sit twice a year in four circuits, each comprising three counties, and to each circuit were appointed justices ‘learned in the laws of this realm’. These courts operated alongside the English courts, and they had the same jurisdiction in Wales as the King’s Bench and Common Pleas had in England…. In 1830 the Great Sessions were abolished, and by complete procedural assimilation England and Wales became at last one unified jurisdiction, two extra circuits being added to the English assize system.” J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 37–38 (3d ed. 1990).
