Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

defensive allegation

Hist. Eccles. law. A defendant's pleading of the facts relied upon that require the plaintiff's response under oath. "The proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts are therefore regulated according to the practice of the civil and canon laws . . . . [T]heir ordinary course of proceeding is; first, by citation, to call the party injuring before them. Then . . . to set forth the complainant's ground of complaint. To this succeeds the defendant's answer upon oath; when, if he denies or extenuates the charge, they proceed to proofs by witnesses examined, and their depositions taken down in writing, by an officer of the court. If the defendant has any circumstances to offer in his defence, he must also propound them in what is called his defensiue allegation, to which he is entitled in his turn to the plaintiff's answer upon oath, and may from thence proceed to proofs as well as his antagonist." 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 100 (1768).