Petition of right
This article is about the pre-1948 contractual remedy against the Crown. For the 1628 document that forms part of the constitutional prelude to the English Civil War, see: Petition of Right, 1628.In
English law, a
petition of right was a
remedy available to subjects to recover property from
the Crown.
Before the
Crown Proceedings Act 1947, the
British Crown could not be
sued in
contract. However, as it was seen to be desirable that Crown contractors could obtain redress, they would otherwise be inhibited from taking on such work, the
petition of right came to be used in such situtations, especially after the
Petitions of Right Act 1860 simplified the process. Before the petition could be heard by the courts, it had to be endorsed with the words
fiat justitia on the advice of the
Home Secretary and
Attorney-General. This latin phrase was normally translated as "Let right be done".
One of the most famous
causes célèbres in English law, the
Archer-Shee case, arose out of proceedings on a petition of right.
S.1 Crown Proceedings Act 1947 allows claims for which a petition would previously have been demanded to be brought in the courts directly as against any other defendant. However, a petition and
fiat still appear to be necessary for personal claims against the
monarch.
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pp770-1
