Talk:Abatement in pleading

	This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
Law High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Being that this subject is addressing flaws in legal process that would help put an end to the overload, overuse, abuse and flood of litigation of the de facto courts that results in hasty hearings and trials that railroad justice in a detrimental manner, and especially the fact that it abatements reveal serious flaws in process that would serve to quash the litigation before it gets started, this subject is of high important in regards to Law.Burk Hale (talk) 14:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But it's a topic in legal history. (From the article: "The plea in abatement was abolished as a particular form of response by the defendant when common-law pleading was replaced by Code Pleading and later by pleading rules, such as the federal Rules of Civil Procedure".) It's not a matter of current law. 2A04:B2C2:1800:DF00:855B:7300:4998:9AED (talk) 18:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As it stands, this stub is very much US-centered. When expanded to become an article, it should include a nod to other (non-US) jurisdictions - notably England & Wales. There the system of pleadings in form was discontinued long ago - in favor of motions, for example "to strike out as disclosing no defence / no ground of action", and (on the criminal side) the convention (not rule) tht if a charge is defended on a point of law and the defence is rejected by the court, no defence will be offered on the facts.

As a general thing English courts may act on their own motion: rather than relying on the parties' initiative. (That's an important modification of the Common Law tradition of adversarial rather than inquisitorial process.)

I think the turning point is the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. 76, eg s.50). The English judiciary aspires to always decide cases on their merits (that is, applying the law to the facts) rather than letting process determine outcome. 2A04:B2C2:1800:DF00:82D:2B2B:5940:3F0A (talk) 21:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]