abuse of court process
This term refers to improper use of legal process. Examples in civil proceedings include: claims that are vexatious, scurrilous, or obviously ill‐founded; attempts to re‐litigate, in another guise, ...
Accountability
The High Court is the end of the road for litigants; there is no further appeal to another court. Moreover, its Justices are appointed until retirement age, are not subject ...
administrative justice
Fairness and integrity in non-judicial (executive) decision-making by government departments, authorities, statutory office holders and non-judicial tribunals. Closely linked to accountability and ...
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 ...
Albert Venn Dicey
(1835–1922)A. V. Dicey was born at Lutterworth in Leicestershire on 4 February 1835 and died in Oxford on 7 April 1922. His father, a Cambridge graduate, was proprietor of ...
assisted suicide
The act of helping someone to commit suicide by giving them the means (e.g. drugs) to do so. Aiding and abetting a suicide is a criminal offence in England and Wales. However, a number of recent ...
Ceremonial sittings
Occur to mark occasions of importance to the High Court and its members, past and present. Ceremonial sittings are also held at the beginning of each year for new silks ...
civil society
The set of intermediate associations which are neither the state nor the (extended) family; civil society therefore includes voluntary associations and firms and other corporate bodies. The term has ...
coercion
N.A defence available only to married women who have committed a crime (other than murder or treason) in the presence of, and under pressure from, their husbands. Its scope is unclear but may be ...
colonial administration and law
Sir William Blackstone and Lord Mansfield sought to reduce colonial governance and law in the eighteenth‐century British Empire to a formal pattern of order by distinguishing conquered and ceded ...
Constitutional Court of South Africa
The Constitutional Court is the highest court in all cases concerning South Africa's Constitution. It was born out of the 1993 negotiated settlement between the white apartheid government, the ...
constitutional law
One of the eleven core subjects a law student must pass to qualify as a candidate for admission to practise law. See Priestley eleven.Constitutional law is a public law ...
Court attire
The dress worn by members of the legal profession—especially the wig—is something about which most people associated with the law hold definite views. One school of thought sees legal dress ...
critical legal studies
A left-leaning movement, critical of legal liberalism, which was especially strong in the USA in the 1980s. It draws variously on Marxism, feminism, postmodernism and even American Legal Realism to ...
democracy
[Ge]A political system that allows the citizens to participate in political decision‐making, or to elect representatives to government bodies.
due administration of justice
A necessary feature of an executive government that complies with the main tenets of the rule of law as typically understood in public law and criminal law. These concern procedural ...
enlargement of the EU
The enlargement of the European Union has progressed steadily since the six founding Member States (France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries) agreed the Treaty of Paris setting up the ...
Entick v Carrington
(1765)On 6 November 1762, the Secretary of State, the Earl of Halifax, issued a general warrant to Nathan Carrington, the senior King's messenger, to arrest John Entick and Arthur ...
European Court of Justice
The fully multilingual judicial authority of the European Union, established in 1952. In cooperation with the courts and tribunals of member states, the Court provides judicial oversight of the ...
European treaties
The main treaties, or agreements between states in international law, between European countries, fall under the purview of two regional organizations: the Council of Europe, and the European Union. ...
