In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, and Certiorari are common types of writ, but many forms exist and have existed.
In English history, praemunire or praemunire facias refers to a 14th-century law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, or any other foreign jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the monarch. This law was enforced by the writ of praemunire facias, a writ of summons from which the law takes its name.
The history of the British peerage, a system of nobility found in the United Kingdom, stretches over the last thousand years. The current form of the British peerage has been a process of evolution. While the ranks of baron and earl predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of duke and marquess were introduced to England in the 14th century. The rank of viscount came later, in the mid-15th century. Peers were summoned to Parliament, forming the House of Lords.
In tort law, detinue is an action to recover for the wrongful taking of personal property. It is initiated by an individual who claims to have a greater right to their immediate possession than the current possessor. For an action in detinue to succeed, a claimant must first prove that he had better right to possession of the chattel than the defendant and second that the defendant refused to return the chattel once demanded by the claimant.
Seisin denotes the legal possession of a feudal fiefdom or fee, that is to say an estate in land. It was used in the form of "the son and heir of X has obtained seisin of his inheritance", and thus is effectively a term concerned with conveyancing in the feudal era. The person holding such estate is said to be "seized of it", a phrase which commonly appears in inquisitions post mortem. The monarch alone "held" all the land of England by his allodial right and all his subjects were merely his tenants under various contracts of feudal tenure.
Ejectment is a common law term for civil action to recover the possession of or title to land. It replaced the old real actions and the various possessory assizes where boundary disputes often featured. Though still used in some places, the term is now obsolete in many common law jurisdictions, in which possession and title are sued by the actions of eviction and quiet title, respectively.
Summary jurisdiction, in the widest sense of the phrase, in English law includes the power asserted by courts of record to deal brevi manu with contempts of court without the intervention of a jury. Probably the power was originally exercisable only when the fact was notorious, i.e. done in presence of the court. But it has long been exercised as to extra curial contempts.
A subpoena ad testificandum is a court summons to appear and give oral testimony for use at a hearing or trial. The use of a writ for purposes of compelling testimony originated in the ecclesiastical courts of Church during the High Middle Ages, especially in England. The use of the subpoena writ was gradually adopted over time by civil and criminal courts in England and the European continent.
Paradine v Jane [1647] EWHC KB J5 is an English contract law case which established absolute liability for contractual debts.
In English law, the assize of novel disseisin was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been disseised, or dispossessed. It was one of the so-called "petty (possessory) assizes" established by Henry II in the wake of the Assize of Clarendon of 1166; and like the other two was only abolished in 1833.
William Rugge was an English Benedictine theologian, and bishop of Norwich from 1536 to 1549.
Cutter v Powell (1795) 101 ER 573 is an English contract law case, concerning substantial performance of a contract.
Smith and Snipes Hall Farm Ltd v River Douglas Catchment Board [1949] 2 KB 500 is an English land law and English contract law appeal decision. The case, decided by Denning LJ, confirmed positive covenants can supplant privity of contract in contracts to improve land and secondly a covenant should be implied where the contract shows an intention that the obligation would attach to the land. The case thirdly held in that context, a somewhat uncertain description of lands which was capable of being rendered certain by extrinsic evidence was sufficient to enforce the covenant.
Following the common law system introduced into Hong Kong when it became a Crown colony, Hong Kong's criminal procedural law and the underlying principles are very similar to the one in the UK. Like other common law jurisdictions, Hong Kong follows the principle of presumption of innocence. This principle penetrates the whole system of Hong Kong's criminal procedure and criminal law. Viscount Sankey once described this principle as a 'golden thread'. Therefore, knowing this principle is vital for understanding the criminal procedures practised in Hong Kong.
In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam, under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The duties owed by and the privileges granted to feudal barons are not exactly defined, but they involved the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king's feudal court, the precursor of parliament.
New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 62 U.S. 366 (1858), was a companion case to the more well-known Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857). At the time Fellows was decided, this case had reached the U.S. Supreme Court but had not yet been argued.
A property tax known as "rates" has been levied in Hong Kong since 1845. The tax applies to all domestic and commercial properties unless exempted, and is based upon the rental value of the property, re-assessed each year. Formerly part of the revenue went to the Urban Council and, from 1986, the Regional Council, but since 2000 the whole amount goes to the Hong Kong Government.
Civil procedure in South Africa is the formal rules and standards that courts follow in that country when adjudicating civil suits. The legal realm is divided broadly into substantive and procedural law. Substantive law is that law which defines the contents of rights and obligations between legal subjects; procedural law regulates how those rights and obligations are enforced. These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced, and what kind of service of process is required, along with the types of pleadings or statements of case, motions or applications, and orders allowed in civil cases, the timing and manner of depositions and discovery or disclosure, the conduct of trials, the process for judgment, various available remedies, and how the courts and clerks are to function.
William Devereux, Baron Devereux of Lyonshall was an English noble who was an important Marcher Lord as he held Lyonshall Castle controlling a strategically vital approach to the border of Wales in the time of Edward I and Edward II. He was the first of this family officially called to Parliament, and was ancestor to John Devereux, 1st Baron Devereux of Whitchurch Maund, the Devereux Earls of Essex, and the Devereux Viscounts of Hereford. His coat of arms was the same as his father's and described as "argent, fess and three roundels in chief gules" which passed to the descendants of his first wife, the Devereux of Bodenham; or "gules od un fesse d'argent ove turteaus d'argent en le chief" which passed to the descendants of his second wife, the Devereux of Frome.
