Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

chancellor's foot

A symbol of the variability of equitable justice. ( John Selden, the 17th-century jurist, is thought to have coined the phrase in this passage, from his best-known book: "Equity is a roguish thing. For law we have a measure, know what to trust to: equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. 'Tis all one as if they should make the standard for the measure the Chancellor's foot. What an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot;'tis the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience." Table Talk (1689).