Judicature Acts
The Judicature Acts
The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 66) and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875 (38 & 9 Vict. c. 77) were acts of the UK Parliament designed to fuse the administration of the Courts of Equity and Common Law. Before the Acts were passed, both Common Law and Equity courts were in disarray.
The Common Law courts focussed on the efficient administration of justice. The result was a highly technical and stylised process. For example, to bring an action in the Common Law courts, one had to file a "writ", but the writ had to be chosen from a set of standard forms. The court would only recognise certain "forms of action". This led to many legal fictions with people trying to bring claims that did not fit into a standard "form" disguising their claims. The emphasis of efficiency led to substantial injustice.
The Court of Chancery (the Equity court) on the other hand, emphasised the 'need to do justice' on the basis of the Chancellor's conscience. The difficulty was that conscience has no limits. Proceedings before the Court of Chancery dragged on and on, with cases not being decided for years and years.
The solution was to adopt a middle ground and fuse the administration of the two forms of action. The two were fused by the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875 (UK). Now pleadings are relatively relaxed. The emphasis is not on the 'form' of action, but rather a 'cause' of action or a set of causes. The result is that, when the issues arising from the causes of action are decided in favour of one party, that party gets relief. The same court can apply rules of law and rules of equity depending on what the substantial justice of a case requires and depending on what specific laws are pleaded by each party.
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More information can also be found at the public domain 1911 Encyclopedia: http://97.1911encyclopedia.org/J/JU/JUDICATURE_ACTS.htm
