Court of Civil Jurisdiction - Legality

Legality

The legal status of the court has been debated. Under English law at the time, the monarch could only establish common law courts in settled lands, which the English had considered the colony of New South Wales to be. However, equitable and other types of courts could not be established except by an Act of Parliament made by the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. This position was recognised by the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1832 in Harris v. Riley NSWSupC 76 when the court under Chief Justice Francis Forbes held that the Court of Civil Jurisdiction did not have an equitable jurisdiction and that the decision of the court in that particular case was void.