PETITION OF RIGHT. Where the crown or a subject has a cause of action against a subject, the ordinary mode of putting that cause of action into a course of legal investigation is by the king's writ, requiring the party to appear in court to answer the complaint. Where the claim is against the crown itself, as this course cannot be pursued, the mode of proceeding provided by common law is to present a petition to the crown, praying for an inquiry and for the remedy to which the party conceives himself to be entitled. As by Magna Charts the king is not to delay right, he is bound, if the petition presents that which has the semblance of a legal or equitable claim, to indorse the petition with the words " let right be done ; " which indorsement operates, in the case of a claim of a legal nature, as a warrant and command to the lord chancellor to issue a commission to inquire into the truth of the matters alleged in the petition. A commission accordingly issues to six or eight persons. who summon a jury, of whom not less than twelve or more than twenty-three are impannelled, and who, under the super intendence of the commissioners, hear the evidence which the peti tioner, or, as he is called, the suppliant, has to adduce in support of his statement. If the jury negative the allegations contained in the peti tion, the commission is at an end ; but the suppliant is at liberty to sue out a new commission or commissions till a jury return an inquisi tion in which the allegations are found to be true. The crown may, upon this return, insist that the facts alleged by the suppliant, and found by the inquisition, do not in point of law entitle the suppliant to the remedy which he claims. The question of law thus raised by demurrer to the inquisition is argued before the lord chancellor. The crown, however, notwithstanding the finding of the jury, may deny the truth of the facts, or, admitting them to be true, may allege other facts which show that the suppliant is not entitled to what he claims. To such facts the suppliant must reply. Any issue of fact joined between the suppliant and the crown is tried in the court of Queen's Bench, the lord chancellor not having the power to summon a jury. Final judg ment is given for or against the suppliant according to the result of the argument upon the demurrer or of the trial of the issue.
If the suppliant in his petition pray that the investigation may take place in a particular court, and the royal indorsement on the petition directs that course to be pursued, the proceedings take place in the court indicated by the indorsement, instead of the Court of Chancery.
Before the abolition of the feudal tenures by the Commonwealth (confirmed after the Restoration, by 12 Car. c. 24), the rights of the crown and of the subject being often brought into collision, occa sions for proceeding by petition of right were very frequent, and as this mode of proceeding was dilatory and expensive, two acts, passed in the reign of Edward fIL, enabled parties aggrieved in certain cases by legal proceedings of the crown, to enter their claim upon those proceedings, without being put to their petition of right, with its expensive commission to inquire. This new course was called a " traverse of office," where the subject denies the matters contained in the " office " or ex parte record constituting the king's title, and a " inonstraunce de droit," where the facts upon which the king's title rests are admitted, but their effect is avoided by the allegation of other facts showing a better title in the claimant. In modern practice the petition of right is not resorted to, except in cases to which neither a traverse of office nor a ruonatraunce de droit applies, or after those remedies have failed.
The petition of right is supposed by Lord Coke and others to be so called because the investigation prayed for is demandable as of right, and not granted as a matter of grace or favour ; but the Latin term " petitio juatitim," shows that the words are used In the sense of a " petition for right." The petition of right hitherto spoken of is the method of redress pro vided by the common law. The statute 23 & 24 Viet. c. 35, has provided a simpler mode of proceeding. It enables the suppliant to entitle his petition in any of the supreme courts of law or equity, at Westminster; and to leave the same with the home secretary for the fiat of the crown. When this fiat is obtained, the petition is served on the soli citor to the treasury, who must appear and answer it, in the name of the attorney-general ; all the subsequent pleadings and proceedings, including the trial, being according to the ordinary practice of the court in which the suit is pending. The suppliant and the crown in proceedings under this statute may recover costs, which are neither paid nor received by the crown upon a petition of right at common law, so that the statutory proceeding must in due course supersede the other.
(Macke. Corn.; Mr. Ken's ed., vol. ch. 17.)