“Equity emergences to supplement the law, not to contradict the law

and always to follow the law”

Equity
A legal definition from the Oxford dictionary describes equity as 'a branch of law that developed
alongside common law and is concerned with fairness and justice, formerly administered in
special courts.

Equity is a Latin word which means fairness, justice. It is a system of law originating in the
English chancery and comprising a settled and formal body of substantive and procedural rules
and doctrines that supplement, aid, or override common and statutory law.

Equity is based on a judicial assessment of fairness as opposed to the strict and rigid rule of
common law. For centuries, the common law was referred to as the law, in contrast with equity.

Nature of Equity

The nature and scope of equity says that equity must preliminary mean right doing, or justice in
the purely ethical meaning of that word. In England equity has acquired an entirely specialized
meaning. It includes technically only certain rules which were developed in the court of
chancery. The basis for its creation may have been the desire to do right thing between men
according to the moral law of time, but it was always limited and has now become a fix body of
principles of the common law.

It is no longer possible to claim redress simply upon moral grounds; it is necessary to show some
principles recognized by the system of Equity before a remedy can be granted.

Firstly equity has enforced rights which the common law Courts failed to enforce; Secondly,
equity has developed additional remedies to the common law for the enforcement of common
law rights. Lastly, the procedure in the Common law Courts was defected, especially is not
compelling or even allowing a defendant to give evidence and in limiting the enquiry to the
action.

So, it can be said that-

General Principles of Equity

The subject matter of the equity can be grouped around some legal maxims which embody the
general principles on which the court of chancery exercised its jurisdiction. Some of such
important maxims are as follows:

(1)  Equity is a correction of the general law in the part where it is defective – A right
is a right only when it can be enforced by the court. A remediless right is of no
consequence. Thus, in order to give effect to a right which is suitable for judicial
enforcement but which could not be enforced at common law due to some technical
defect, the Court of Chancery developed the maxim ‘equity will not suffer a wrong to be
without a remedy.

 (2) Equity follows the law – Equity does not claim to override the law. Equity generally
operates by recognizing the legal rule and adding some further rule, remedy or the other
machinery of its own.

(3) He who seeks equity must do equity – This maxim put a mandate on the seeker of
equity that he must, in his turn, be equitable in recognizing and submitting to the right of
his adversary as no one can be justified in requiring another to be conscientious without
himself being so. A litigant, claiming something by way of equity, must, himself be ready
and willing to grant to his opponent, that which the opponent is entitled.

(4)The law helps the vigilant and the dormant – While a legal claim is not barred by
any lapse of time less than the prescribed statutory period of limitation, an equitable
claim, on the other hand, may be barred by delay on the part of the plaintiff seeking
relief.

(5)Equity delights in equality – The English Court of Chancery, incorporated into the
Equity jurisprudence of English Law, the concept of acquits i.e. the notion of equality
and impartiality as conceived by the Roman jurists. The equity, thus, so far as possible,
puts the parties to a transaction on an equal footing, although the strict rules of law may
give one party an advantage over the other. Equality have does not mean literal equality,
but it means ‘proportional equality’.

(6)Where equities are equal , the first in time shall prevail – In the absence of a legal estate in
the matter and the contest is among the equitable estate only, the rule is that the person whose
 equity attached to the property first will be entitled to priority over other or others e.g., if A enters
into a contract for the sale of his house with B and then with C, the interest of B and C both being
equitable, B will have priority over C because his attached to the property first.

(7) Legal estate prevails over the equitable estate – Where there is a question of selection
between equity on one hand over text of law on the other, the Court shall choose the latter. To say
it differently, the person in possession of legal estate is entitled to priority over any person having
merely an equitable estate in that property.

Relationship between common law and equity:

Common law proves to be a self-sufficient legal system or source of law when compared to
equity. This can be attested by the fact that equity presupposes the existence of common law and
if we abolished the equity system, we would still have a coherent system of law, common law,
but not vice versa.

The equity system of law was developed as a measure to address the rigidity of the common law
system. Therefore, in its early years, the equity system was largely viewed as being against
common law. The general feeling among a majority of people in legal circles was that the
common law system would be equity abrogated by the inception of equity. On the contrary, it is
evident that the modern development of equity is has in no way come to abrogate the common
law but instead it serves to strengthen it.

Because of the nature of equity, a conflict between the two systems was in the offing and so
between the years 1873-75, the court of chancery abolished the courts that propagated the equity
system of law, by means of the Judicature Act. This was done through the transfer of their
jurisdiction to the new supreme court of judicature, which in its administration led to the fusing
of both the common law and equity. However, the substantive body of rules or laws found in the
two systems was still maintained as separate entities. It is worth noting that the relationship
between equity and common law is today is not one of contradiction but rather one of
complementarily. The Judicature Acts (1873–75) succeeded in the merge of the administration of
both equity and common law. This means that a majority of modern day law courts apply the two
set of rules in their proceedings.

Whenever conflict still existed between the rules of the two systems, the rules of equity were to
prevail in favor of those of common law. The overall effect of the Judicature Act that merged the
two systems was the conversion of the exclusive and separate jurisdiction of equity into a
concurrent jurisdiction. It also served to abolish the auxiliary jurisdiction, which meant that there
was no longer need to go to a separate court if one wishes to obtain an equitable remedy. This
change applied not only in the United Kingdom but also in the Commonwealth Nations.

However, the equity system continues to perform its core function, which is to complement and
supplement the common law, in accordance with the morally accepted notions of justice and
fairness.
Conclusion

Before the unification of equity and common law, achieved by the enactment of the Judicature
Acts (1873–75), the latter provided some stability for the English legal system. This was in spite
of its characteristic rigidity, whereas the former, due to its original unprincipled and loose
application, led to serious instability and inconsistencies. The nature of the relationship between
the two systems today is that they strive to balance each other. This is accomplished without
having either of the two systems being accorded less significance than the other is.

It is evident that there exists a mutual relationship between the two systems of law. This is in the
interest of providing fair and just rulings and arbitration in any given legal dispute.