The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

Equity, if anything, seeks to achieve a balanced legal system by remedying the defects of the common law and this aspect of equity is defined by the German philosopher Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770 – 1831). “Equity involves a departure from formal rights owing to moral or other considerations and is concerned primarily with the content of the lawsuit. A court of equity, however, comes to mean a court which decides in a single case without insisting on the formalities if a legal process or, in particular, on the objective evidence which the letter of the law may require. Further, it decides on the merits of the single case as a unique one, not with a view to disposing of it in such a way as to create a binding legal precedent for the future.” In short equity decides each case on its merits, taking into account what is fair and just, and does not create and nor does it intent to create, a binding precedent. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward

To restrict oneself to common law or statutes, without taking into account the evolution of the English Legal System, and without having a clear and concise view of English history, would be to adopt an overly simplistic approach. English Law as it is today is not a result of an act or a series of acts but rather a culmination of numerous events that started well before 1066 and whatever the situation may be today, we have to understand its roots and its origins in order for us to acquire a comprehensive understanding, not only of the English Legal System, but also of the spirit of the law, i.e. the true motivation behind laws (theoretically speaking) which is the need to do what is good and right and the notion that right must always prevail over wrong or to take it a step further, good must always prevail over evil which goes back to the tenets of the Christian Church. The Law obviously has to change with time to meet the needs of the people but the fundamentals are alway

Those that were disappointed or those that were denied justice however were not without recourse and they began petitioning the king who is the highest authority in the kingdom appealing to his sense of justice and fair-play. Equity itself is synonymous to justice and fair-play and the word simply means fair and impartial. Initially the king dealt with the petitions himself but as the number of petitions increased the task was delegated to the Chancellor who became known as the keeper of the king’s conscious. When a litigant seeks an equitable remedy, he or she is in fact appealing to the conscious of the king. The Chancellor, on behalf of the king, decided the cases on what was morally right, and it would be fair to say that equity blurs the lines or the distinction between what is morally right and legally right and while it is common enough to hear people say that what is morally wrong is not legally wrong, English Law is not so cut and dry especially in cases and instances