abuse
Criminal mistreatment of others with whom one has, or has had, a continuing relationship of some kind. Abuse arises in four categories: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect ...
Act of Parliament
A statute; what a parliament enacts when it makes laws. The terms ‘statute’ and ‘Act’ are interchangeable.
administrative law
The branch of public law governing the exercise of powers and duties by public authorities. It is particularly concerned with the control of public power by judicial review and by non-judicial ...
Admiralty
The law of admiralty encompasses claims which were originally within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court of England and Wales and which are now governed by the Admiralty Act 1988 ...
advisory Opinions
‘The [International] Court [of Justice] may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter ...
alimony
N.Formerly, financial provision made by a husband to his wife when they are living apart. Alimony is now known as maintenance or financial provision.
Allen v Flood
(1898)In the late Victorian period there was disagreement within the judiciary about what role tort law should play in cases where economic harm was deliberately inflicted by one person ...
Anderson v Gorrie
(1895)By the early 1890s British judges had erected an almost impregnable barrier to protect themselves from lawsuits brought by litigants disgruntled by judges' actions or (more often) by words ...
appeal
All jurisdictions, federal and state, generally make appellate review for correctness from the civil or criminal judgments of trial courts available in some form. Most states and the federal system ...
Attorney-General v De Keyser's Royal Hotel Ltd
(1920)This case established that where both statute and the royal prerogative address essentially the same subject matter, the former ‘abridges’ (that is, supplants) the latter. Some might see the ...
auditor liability
It is the function of auditors to scrutinize the company's accounts and as they are well paid for this service, it follows that a negligent audit will expose auditors to ...
Beatty v Gillbanks
(1882)This case is important in the law of public order. Particular prominence was given to the decision in A V Dicey's Introduction to the Study of the Law of ...
Bell v Lever Brothers Ltd
(1932)This decision is the leading English authority on the effect of mistake on the formation of a contract. Bell and Snelling, who were senior officers in a Lever Brothers' ...
bicameralism
The view that a legislative chamber should be properly composed of two houses. In the majority of states, the second or upper house has a more restricted role, for example limited to checking or ...
Bolton v Stone
(1951)Few cases in the history of the common law are as well known as that of Bolton v Stone (1951). On an afternoon in August 1947, members of the ...
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones
(1994)is an example of the trend towards reforming tort law that was a feature of the Court's jurisprudence in the 1980s and early 1990s. Other examples of that trend ...
cabinet
The term was first used in the early 17th century for the private room in which confidential advisers of the sovereign or chief ministers of a country meet; the current sense of a committee of senior ...
Citations by Court
Judges, especially appellate judges, are expected to give reasons for their decisions. In the course of giving these reasons, the judges generally cite authorities in support of their conclusions. So ...
civil trials
The civil trial is a procedure for the just determination of disputes, primarily between private persons (including companies); but public authorities and the Crown may also be parties. The civil ...
common law
1 The part of English law based on rules developed by the royal courts during the first three centuries after the Norman Conquest (1066) as a system applicable to the whole country, as opposed to ...
