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What is petite court?

Updated: 8/19/2023
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βˆ™ 12y ago

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Petite essentially means "small". In legalese, it essentially means, "not regular".

In olden times, petite courts, or "Petit Session Courts" were perfunctory courts dispatched on behalf of the king to pick up on civil matters that could include criminal matters; but were civil in the sense that they were subject to civilians who were given the right to make claims against the state or other parties. In short, they were courts meant to meet the needs of the people at a time when regular courts were not in session, and/or regular courts were alleviated from having to deal with, or never have dealt with before because there was no venue for the people to make a certain kind of grievance for a government department or project that did not beforehand exist. What it came down to was this: If the king never made a decree, then there was no impetus for complaints to levee against the king's decree (not that the decree was injurious or wrong; but that the king's decree created a right, entitlement, or issue never before realized), and so no special court is given yet to make amends for a decree that was never yet given.

In modern day parlance, Petite Courts have become known to be "Claims Courts" in the US Federal government. But state to state court systems may actually use that term for regular, criminal circuit courts because of the use of the "Petit Jury" found in such courts that can give the verdict of fault, innocence, or acquittal. Because of that common usage of Petit Jury it has come about to be deemed a "Petit Court Jury" even though it is that circuit court that is not doing a perfunctory role of a claims court. So the meaning has become blurred and ambiguous in common usage, and apparently so from state to state, because regular courts get referred to as "Petite" or "Petit" because of the trial by an impartial jury of peers to determine hazards of harm against persons. A lot of it depends on how the court originally came into existence and how it was restructured over time to the point the nomenclature (naming) of the court stuck with that office title for sake of consistency.

In the view of Common Law claims and issues collectively are known as "temporal affairs" because they often had nothing to do with moral civil codes of criminality. Often temporal affairs dealt with business commerce and the naturalization and services of subjects "citizens" of the state. In a court of law, a subject is the person or party who is filing the complaint, aka, the "Petitioner" and not the object of the case, the defendant or respondent in the notation of People (subject) vs. State (object). This seems counter-intuitive to us because we so often hear the term "subject of the king" or "subject of the state" in a manner that is akin to subservience or obedience.

Yet, a law abiding citizen has rights and entitlements due for obeying laws, and the Civil Law came about to help citizens have rights in court on the hazard of being found a law breaker because commoners tended to not now details of laws they never heard of or could ever to ignorant to comprehend. So Civil Law came into being to protect people with Due Process from the automatic prosecution by the king (the king arbitrarily throws in jail whomsoever he pleases) and injustice of bias by the court by the protection of a jury of peers whom likewise are subject to the same laws. Classic and perfunctory Petite Courts that process claims essentially are summarized and automated adjudication of the whole indictment, arrest, arraignment, court hearings, judgment, and sentencing process for sake of expediency and so often lack a lot of the familiar trappings that we know as being a court case; but it is still a judgment with the weight and affect of a court case. Filing to obtain something like a Driver's License is, in a sense, a claim and the license is a judgment that has such force that you are freely able to show it around as proof of citizenry, legal grant to drive on public roads, and identity to a host of organizations of all stripes.

Claims courts are rather different because there is no Grand Jury standing in the way of a citizen to review whether you have the right to make a claim or not. You just make a claim, and then the claim gets reviewed by an appointed authority. But the claims clerk acts like a Grand Jury by pre-qualifying that a claim is filled out correctly with all the proper evidence before sending the claim up the chain. Grand Juries throw out charges before ever reaching the court after arrest and arraignment to answer charges before a judge because when the people of the Grand Jury throw out a charge then there is no charge for the accused to give an answer to. In this, claims clerks are very important people you want to show your gratitude to because they sort of have the power of a Grand Jury rolled up in one person. They can stop your claim cold on their own judgment such that the government never is held in audience to give an answer to.

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βˆ™ 12y ago
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βˆ™ 12y ago

The term 'petit' isn't commonly used (in the US) to refer to the court itself, but refers instead to the JURY which hears cases in that court. Trial cases are heard by Petit Juries not Grand Juries.

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