Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Delegata potestas non potest delegari
A delegated authority cannot be delegated.
Derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitiva
Power that is derived cannot be greater than that from which it is derived.
In praesentia majoris potestatis, minor potestas cessat
In the presence of the superior power, the minor power ceases.
Jurisdictio est potestas de publico introducta, cum necessitate juris dicendi
Jurisdiction is a power introduced for the public good, on account of the necessity of dispensing justice.
Patria potestas in pietate debet, non in atrocitate consistere
Parental authority should consist in devotion, not dread.
Potestas
[Latin "power"] Roman law. Authority or power, such as the power of a magistrate to enforce the law, or the authority of a master over a slave.
Potestas stricte interpretatur
A power should be strictly interpreted.
Potestas suprema seipsum dissolvere potest, ligare non potest
Supreme power can dissolve (or release), but cannot bind, itself.
patria potestas
[Latin "paternal power"] The authority held by the male head of a family over his children and further descendants in the male line, unless emancipated. 9 Initially, the father had extensive powers over the family, including the power of life and death. Over time, the broad nature of the patria potestas gradually became more in the nature of a responsibility to support and maintain family members. "The power of the father continued ordinarily to the close of his life, and included not only his own children, but also the children of his sons, and those of his sons' sons, if any such were born during his lifetime .... Originally and for a long time the patria potestas had a terribly despotic character. Not only was the father entitled to all the service and all the acquisitions of his child, as much as to those of a slave, but he had the same absolute control over his person. He could inflict upon him any punishment however severe .... Consider now that the patria potestas had this character and extent down to the Christian era: that, in general, every citizen of the republic who had a living father was in this condition, unable to hold property, unable to acquire anything for himself, wholly dependent on his father in property and person without help or vindication from the law The reason which caused the Romans to accept and uphold the patria potestas, to maintain it with singular tenacity against the influence of other systems with which they came in contact, must have been the profound impression of family unity, the conviction that every family was, and of right ought to be, one body, with one will and one executive." James Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law 119-21 (1881). potestative condition
summa potestas
n. [Latin "sum or totality of power"] The final authority or power in government.