Recognisance, an acknowledgement of a debt owing to the Crown, with a condition to be void if the recognizor shall do some particular act, as if he, or the party for whom he is surety, shall appear at the assizes to prosecute a person, or to come up for judgment when called upon, or shall prosecute an appeal, or shall be of good behaviour, commonly called 'binding over.' As to the power of justices of their own initiative to bind over a person, though no formal charge has been made against him, see R. v. Wilkins, (1907) 2 KB 380. See also R. v. Sandbach, Ex p. Williams, (1935) 2 KB 192, and Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. 49), s. 31,
sub-s. 3, as amended by Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo. 5, c. 38), s. 1; and as to the mode of entering into recognizance, see Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, s. 24; see also ss. 19-23. For forms of recognizance, see the schedule to the Summary Jurisdiction rules, 1886; also rules 112-115 of the Crown Office Rules of 1906, especially rule 113, by which no recognizance 'shall be forfeited, estreated, or put upon the estreat roll without the order of the Court or a Judge, nor unless an order or notice shall have been previously served upon the parties by whom such recognizances shall have been given, calling upon them to perform the conditions thereof,' and see s. 66 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Act, 1933, as to forfeited recognisances.
A bond or obligation, made in court, by which a person promises to perform some act or observe some condition, such as to appear when called to pay a debt, or to keep peace, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1277.
As to enforcement of recognizances by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction in respect of proceedings in such Court, see s. 9 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879.
Recognisances of any date are not to operate as a charge on land or the unpaid purchase money of any land unless a writ or order for the purpose of enforcing the recognizance is registered at the Land Registry. [(English) Law of Property Act, 1925,
s. 195(4), and see Land Charges Act, 1925, s. 6]