Text 3- Equity

In ordinary language, equity simply means fairness, but in law it applies to a specific set of legal principles, which add to those provided in the common law. It was originally inspired by ideas of fairness and natural justice, but is now no more than a particular branch of English law. Equity is an area of law which can only be understood in the light of its historical development.

The common law was developed after the Norman Conquest through the ‘itinerant justices’ traveling around the country and sorting out disputes. By about the twelfth century, common law courts had developed which applied this common law. Civil actions in these courts had to be started by a writ and there grew up different types of writ. Early on, new writs were created to suit new circumstances, but in the thirteenth century this was stopped. Litigants had to fit their circumstances to one of the available types of writ. At the same time, the common law was itself becoming increasingly rigid, and offered only one remedy, damages. Consequently, many people were unable to seek redress for wrongs through the common law courts. Many of these dissatisfied parties petitioned the king, who was thought of as the ‘fountain of justice’. These petitions were commonly passed to the Chancellor, the king’s chief minister, as the king did not want to spend time considering them. The Chancellor was usually a member of the clergy, and was thought of as ‘keeper of the king’s conscience’. Soon litigants began to petition the Chancellor himself, and by 1474, the Chancellor had begun to make decisions on the cases on his own authority, rather than as a substitute for the king. This was the beginning of the Court of Chancery. Verdicts were based on his own moral view of the question. The Court could insist that relevant documents be disclosed, as well as questioning the parties in person, unlike the common law courts. The Court of Chancery could provide whatever remedy best suited the case – the decree of specific performance, injunction rectification and rescission. This type of justice came to be known as equity.

Not surprisingly, the Court of Chancery became popular, and caused some resentment among common lawyers, who argued that the quality of decisions varied with the length of the Chancellor’s foot – in other words, that it depended on the qualities of the individual Chancellor. Because precedents were not followed and each case was considered purely on its merits, justice could appear arbitrary, and nobody could predict what a decision might be. On the other hand this very flexibility was seen as the great advantage of equity – where any rules are laid down, there will always be situations in which those rules produce injustice. Equity dealt with controversial situations by applying notions of good sense and fairness, but in doing so laid itself open to the charge that fairness is a subjective quality.

Matters came to a head in 1615 in the The Earl of Oxford’s Case, where conflicting judgments of the common law courts and the Court of Chancery were referred to the king for a decision; he advised that where there was conflict, equity should prevail. The rivalry continued for some time, but gradually abated as equity too began to be ruled by precedent and standard principles, a development related to the fact that it was becoming established practice to appoint lawyers rather than clergy to the office of Lord Chancellor. By the nineteenth century, equity had a developed case law and recognizable principles, and was no less rigid than the common law.

Once equity became a body of law, rather than an arbitrary exercise of conscience, there was no reason why it needed its own courts. Consequently the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875, which established the basis of the court structure we have today, provided that equity and common law could both be administered by all courts, and that there would no longer be different procedures for seeking equitable and common law remedies. Although the Court of Chancery remained as a division of the High Court, like all other courts it can now apply both common law and equity.