Mandamus In The 13th Century Essay

sovereign wishing to be informed, would order the record to be transmitted to King’s Bench. In the seventeenth century it became a means of review of the activities then newly required of the justices of the peace. Prohibition, one of the oldest known writs, at first used to limit the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, was later used by the common law courts in the battles with the Court of Chancery, and other courts more closely associated with the Crown. Mandamus in the 13th century was a means of ensuring performance of acts to safeguard the King’s feudal dues rather than an instrument for enforcing public duties, but in the reign of Edward II it was used to direct the University of Oxford to readmit a person it had expelled. In 1573 it was used to restore a franchise of which a London citizen had been illegally deprived and in Bagg’s case , it was used to restore to his office a
Thereafter its scope was expanded to compel performance of duties incumbent in administrative and judicial bodies. Though it was extensively used by Edward I to prevent encroachments on his prerogatives and rights, quo warranto had been used previously by private suitors. In the 16th century it was replaced by information filed by the Attorney-General, and if brought ex relatione a private person, leave of the court was necessary. A statute of William and Mary (4 & 5 W. & M .c. 18) forbade the exhibition of malicious information’s and it was subsequently held that this applied to information in the nature of the quo warranto. It enabled information to be brought with leave of the court at the relation of any person against anyone usurping or unlawfully holding any office in any city or borough. The association with Sec. 19 of Magna Carta attributed to habeas corpus is probably imaginary. By the fifteenth century, older writs intended to protect personal liberty had been replaced by the writ of habeas corpus which was not used against the Crown until the reign of Henry