Binding over

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title: "Binding over" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["english-legal-terminology"] description: "Legal power of criminal courts in England and Wales" topic_path: "general/english-legal-terminology" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_over" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Legal power of criminal courts in England and Wales ::

In the law of England and Wales and some other common law jurisdictions, binding over is an exercise of certain powers by the criminal courts used to deal with low-level public order issues. Both magistrates' courts and the Crown Court may issue binding-over orders in certain circumstances.

England and Wales

In a 1988 article in the Cambridge Law Journal, British legal commentator David Feldman describes the power to "bind people over to be of good behaviour or to keep the peace" as a useful and common device used in the criminal justice system of England and Wales, and explains the process as follows:

::quote[attribution="breach the peace]] or commit criminal offences. They require him to enter into a recognisance, in form of a voluntary covenant or agreement, to [[Peace (law)"] Magistrates form the view that a person ("the principal"), who might be a person of previously unblemished reputation, is likely to [[Breach of the peace ::

The origins of the binding-over power are rooted in (1) the takings of sureties of the peace, which "emerged from the peace-keeping arrangements of Anglo-Saxon law, extended by the use of the royal prerogative and royal writs", and (2) the separate device of sureties of good behaviour, which originated as a type of conditional pardon given by the king. The statutory authorization for binding-over powers is found in the Justices of the Peace Act 1361 (34 Edw. 3 c. 1) and s. 1(7) Justices of the Peace Act 1968 (c. 69). Part 11 of Chapter 5 of the Sentencing Act 2020 (c. 17) empowers the criminal courts, when sentencing a person under 18 years for an offence, to "order the parent or guardian to enter into a recognizance to take proper care of the offender and exercise proper control over the offender". Such an order cannot be made against a local authority acting in loco parentis.

Hong Kong

Binding-over orders are a feature of the law of Hong Kong.

References

References

1. "Binding Over Orders". [[Crown Prosecution Service]].
2. Feldman, David. (March 1988). "The King's Peace, the Royal Prerogative and Public Order: The Roots and Early Development of Binding over Powers". [[Cambridge Law Journal]].
3. "Justices of the Peace Act 1361". [[The National Archives (United Kingdom).
4. {{cite legislation UK. (1968)
5. "Sentencing Act 2020: Chapter 5, Part 11". [[The National Archives (United Kingdom).
6. Simon N. M. Young, "Sentencing" in ''Understanding Criminal Justice in Hong Kong'' (eds. Wing Hong Chui & T. Wing Lo: Routledge, 2008), pp. 170-76.

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