Equity, the Judicature Acts and Restitution

Abstract:     
What did the Judicature legislation do? What relevance does it have to current debates on the relationship between equity and restitution? Most of this article (sections 2-8) provides, largely by reference to primary materials, a contextual account of the English Judicature legislation of 1873 and 1875, and its New South Wales counterparts of 1970 and 1972, in order to answer the first question. The final section of this article (section 9) contends that the Judicature Acts have nothing to do with attempts to reformulate parts of common law and equity by reference to a unifying principle of unjust enrichment.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 24

Keywords: Equity, Judicature legislation, Fusion, Restitution, Judicature, Bleak House, Fusion Fallacy

JEL Classification: K10, K30

Accepted Paper Series