Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Court of Exchequer
Hist. A former English superior court responsible primarily for adjudicating disputes about the collection of public revenue. 0 In 1873 it became the Exchequer Division of the High Court of Justice. In 1881 that Division was merged into the Queen's Bench Division. See QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION. Cf CHAMBER OF ACCOUNTS.
Court of Exchequer Chamber
Hist. 1. An informal assembly of common-law judges who (sometimes with the Lord Chancellor) gathered to discuss important cases that have adjourned pending an opinion from the Court. 0 This body never became a court of law in a technical sense, but judges gave great weight to its decisions. The last reported decision of this body is from 1738. "Earlier than these two statutory courts was the practice, which apparently originated about the time of Edward I, of informal meetings of the judges in the Exchequer Chamber to decide matters connected with litigation .... The purpose of the meeting was to bring before the judges a point of law which caused difficulty and which had arisen in a case being heard before one or other of the courts. Any resolution passed did not constitute a judgment; it was left to the court concerned to make the appropriate decree, and the official record made no reference to the informal decision .... Civil cases were debated in the Exchequer Chamber as late as the seventeenth century, and criminal cases continued to be 'reserved' for full discussion by all the common law judges until the nineteenth century." A.KR. Kiralfy, Potter's Outlines of English Legal History 202-04 (5th ed. 1958). 2. A court created by statute in 1357 to hear appeals from the Court of Exchequer. 3. A court created by statute in 1585 to hear appeals from the King's Bench. 0 This court consisted of all the justices of the Common Pleas and the Barons of Exchequer who were serjeants. At least six judges were necessary to render a judgment. "Parliament was only occasionally summoned in the sixteenth century; and as Parliament was the only court which could amend errors of the King's Bench, the want of a court which could hold regular sessions was much felt. To supply this want a new court of Exchequer Chamber was created in 1585 for the purpose of amend- ing the errors of the King's Bench." 1 William Holdsworth, A History o/ English Law 244 (7th ed. 1956). 4. A court charged with hearing appeals from the common-law courts of record. 0 This court was created in 1830 by combining the courts created by the statutes of 1357 and 1585. Appeals from one common-law court were heard by judges from the other two courts. "This complicated system of appellate courts was abolished in 1830, when a new Court of Exchequer Chamber was set up as the court of error from each of the three common law courts. It was composed of the judges of the two common law courts other than those of the court appealed from. At the same time the right of the King's Bench to hear error from the Common Pleas was abolished. From the judgment of this new court a further appeal still lay to the House of Lords. This court was thus, until the Judicature Act, 1873, a court of intermediate appeals. Its jurisdiction after the Judicature Act passed to the Court of Appeal which was then created." W.J.V. Windeyer, Lectures on Legal History 144 (2d ed. 1949).