Judicature Acts

The Judicature Acts are Acts of Parliament which fused the court systems of England and Wales together, beginning back in the 1870s. The Act of 1873 combined the Court of Queen’s Bench (called the King’s Bench if there is a male Monarch), the Court of Chancery, the Court of Common Pleas, the High Court of Admiralty, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, and the Court of Probate into the Supreme Court of Judicature, which was further divided into two courts: the Court of Appeal and the High Court of Justice (or simply the High Court). The Act had three main objectives, which were to establish a cohesive and uniform procedure and pleading system, to unite the previously separate common law and equity courts, and to provide a system for the enforcement of the same laws where before common and equity law were ruled differently. After the enactment, the section of the Common Pleas, the Exchequer, and the Queen’s Bench, and all of their jurisdiction including equitable, legal and criminal, were all vested in a new court. However, the joining of the law and equity systems was not complete as the equity (Chancery) division retained a distinction from the common law (Queen’s Bench) division in the new court. The difference since the Act was then that both divisions were housed within a single High Court.