4 - What Did the Makers of the Judicature Acts Understand by ‘Fusion’?

Summary

Apart from the fact that the meaning of “fusion” is debated today in relation to law and equity, its meaning was contested by the participants in the debates that led to the reforms which “fused” the courts of common law and of equity – and others – in England in 1875. The understandings of fusion among these people differed for various reasons. Where some lawyers thought equity inherently different to common law, fusion concerned the substance of the law. Some saw fusion as relating only to differing procedures used in courts of equity and courts of common law, while others again treated fusion as a necessary change of the legal profession: the specialisation and mutual ignorance by equity and common lawyers of one another had to be overcome. The legal reforms pursued to achieve these conflicting ends also changed, ultimately becoming reforms of the entire judicature not merely of law and equity.