Petition de droit (Petition of Right UK), one of the Common Law methods of obtaining possession or restitution from the Crown of either real or personal property, or compensation in damages for breach of contract, the Crown not being liable to an ordinary action at the suit of a subject. It is said to owe its origin of Edward I.
By the (UK) Petition of Right Act, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. 34) (commonly called Bovill's Act), the procedure on a petition of right is assimilated as far as practic-able to the course of an ordinary action. The fiat of the sovereign 'that right be done' is, however, a necessary preliminary step; this is obtained by leaving the petition with the Home Secretary. A judgment that the suppliant is entitled to the whole or some portion of the relief sought by his petition, or to such other relief as the Court may think right, has the same effect as a judgment of amoveas manus. Costs are made payable both to and by the Crown, and nothing in the Act is to prevent any suppliant from proceeding as he might have done before the Act passed. Consult Robertson on the Crown
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