Equity in English Legal System

The Capital Requirements Act came in response to the strict procedures of the English courts. Frustrated plaintiffs turned to the king when they couldn`t get the result they needed to survive. The King then formed the Court of Chancery to deal with the law of equity. Although monetary judgments are often made by small claims courts, this type of court produces good examples of justice. The ancestor of the trust was called the use and the use was the same institution, but only the name was different. This is when a person called feoffor has transferred title from another person (feoffee to uses) to another person, known as cestuic use. Henry VIII issued the Statute of Use in 1535 (which came into effect in 1536) to prohibit this practice and recover lost revenues. The law effectively made the beneficial owner of the land the rightful owner and thus feudal rights. In India, the common law doctrine of justice was traditionally followed even after independence in 1947. In 1963, however, the Specific Remedial Measures Act was passed by the Parliament of India on the recommendation of the Law Commission of India and the previous Specific Remedial Measures Act of 1877 was repealed. Under the 1963 Act, most concepts of equity were codified and became legal rights, ending the courts` discretion to award equitable remedies. The rights codified by the 1963 Act were as follows: since the principles of equity could be applied by all courts in England, their use was not uncommon.

In cases where standard remedies do not provide adequate redress, it is essential to know what fair remedies can help ensure that justice is done. However, this branch of law is not without its difficulties, and it is always advisable to speak to a lawyer to fully understand how the law can work for you. It has also been argued that because justice and conscience are there to stop unscrupulous results, justice can also have a moral basis. The concept of justice and its moral basis can be supported by Lord Ellesmere`s speech in the Case of the Earl of Oxford [1615] 1 Ch Rep 1, „correcting people`s consciences for deceit, breaths of confidence, injustice and oppression. And to soften and appease the branch of the law. The moral basis here is that the purpose of justice is to prevent people from doing wrong and unjustly taking advantage of situations; This moral basis is now reflected in just maxims such as „fairness acts in personam.“ Moreover, it can be argued from Lord Ellesmere`s quotation that justice has more to do with the actions of society. This means that justice has more to do with what societies do as morally wrong than with the thought process, their conscience, that follows. Justice focuses on what is morally right or wrong in the eyes of the law, while the law determines what is legally right or wrong. In jurisdictions that follow the English common law system, equity is the legal interest developed in the English Court of Chancery and now administered at the same time as the common law.

[3] In common law jurisdictions, the word „justice“ is „not synonymous with `general fairness` or `natural justice`“, but refers to „a particular set of rules derived from a particular judicial system“. [4] This tension came to a head in the case of the Earl of Oxford (1615), where a judgment of Chief Justice Coke was allegedly obtained by fraud. [21] The Lord Chancellor, Lord Ellesmere, issued a Chancery injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the common law order. The two courts reached an impasse and the case was eventually referred to the Attorney General, Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis, with the authority of King James I, confirmed the application of the equitable injunction and concluded that in the event of a conflict between common law and equity, equity would prevail. [22] The primacy of justice in England was later enshrined in the Judicature Acts of the 1870s, which also served to merge the courts and common law courts (but explicitly not the systems themselves) into a single judicial system. => The first maxim applies to the plaintiff`s conduct before he brought the action, i.e. he should have behaved fairly before bringing the action.

For example, in D&C Builders v. Rees (1966): In this case, a small firm worked on the rest of a couple, and when the work was done, the construction workers demanded the price, but the couple refused to pay the full price, arguing that the worse the work, the more the work was not done properly. The builders did not accept this, but they accepted these limited sums of money, but after agreeing, they want the rest of the price. The couple resisted this claim by invoking a principle of justice to resist the doctrine of legal forfeiture, meaning you can`t receive in a way that creates an expectation for someone else and changes your mind. =>Chappell v. Times Newspapers Ltd (1975): The newspaper`s employees were threatened with dismissal if they did not arrest him. They are asking the court for an injunction preventing the employer from firing the employees. The court was prepared to grant the exemption, but only if the workers were willing to end their strike after the injunction was issued.

The workers refused, so the injunction was rejected. The second maxim was used. Since they said they would not stop the strike, that they would not behave fairly, the equity claim could not be spent because the employees demonstrate in the process that they do not agree. However, equity cases are usually only heard by a judge deciding the case, which may take the form of a lawsuit or dismissal of a party`s claim. For example, a common law court could order a person who steals a computer to return the value of the computer to the injured party, which would be fair, but perhaps not fair. A fair court, on the other hand, could order the return of the computer to the owner as a fairer solution to the situation. If a plaintiff`s case is based on a rule of equity and not on a rule of common law, that rule of equity can only be applied if the maxims are respected. There is no such thing at common law. For equitable remedies to be available, a plaintiff would have to prove that there has been a breach and that equity should be an alternative to damages. Fairness rules and remedies were designed to alleviate the difficulties caused by decisions relating to the relative rigidity of the common law. The courts of equity have developed the maxim „fairness follows the law“. This meant that their decisions would not directly contradict the common law courts.

Instead, if they considered the legal result unscrupulous, they would exercise their discretion to circumvent the law by offering equitable remedy. Even today, if there is an adequate common law remedy, the courts will refuse to grant a remedy in equity. In the second half of the twentieth century, there was increasing debate about the usefulness of treating justice as a separate law. These debates have been called „fusion wars.“ [8] [9] In this debate, the focus has been on the notion of unjust enrichment and whether areas of law traditionally considered fair can be rationalized within a single body of law known as the law of unjust enrichment. [10] [11] [12] Today, three states still have separate courts of justice and equity; Most notable is Delaware, where the Court of Chancery rules on most cases involving Delaware corporations. [41] In some countries, however, the merger is still ongoing; Other states (such as Illinois and New Jersey) have separate divisions for legal and just matters in a single court.