Hitherto we have confined our attention to the administration of justice in the narrowest and most proper sense of the term. In this sense it means, as we have seen, the application by the state of the sanction of physical force to the rules of justice. It is the forcible defence of rights and suppression of wrongs. The administration of justice properly so called, therefore, involves in every case two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, a right claimed or a wrong complained of by the former as against the latter, a judgment in favour of the one or the other, and execution of this judgment by the power of the state if need be. We have now to notice that the administration of justice in a wider sense includes all the functions of courts of justice, whether they conform to the foregoing type or not. It is to administer justice in the strict sense that the tribunals of the state are established, and it is by reference to this essential purpose that they must be defined. But when once established, they are found to be useful instruments, by virtue of their constitution, procedure, authority, or special knowledge, for the fulfilment of other more or less analogous functions. To these secondary and non-essential activities of the courts, no less than to their primary and essential functions, the term administration of justice has been extended. They are miscellaneous and indeterminate in character and number, and tend to increase with the advancing complexity of modern civilisation. They fall chiefly into four groups.

The courts of law exercise, in the first place, the function of adjudicating upon claims made by subjects against the state itself. If a subject claims that a debt is due to him from the Crown, or that the Crown has broken a contract with him, or wrongfully detains his property, he is at liberty to take proceedings by way of petition of right m a court of law for the determination of his rights in the matter. The petition is addressed to the Crown itself, but is referred for consideration to the courts of justice, and these courts will investigate the claim in due form of law, and pronounce in favour of the petitioner or of the Crown, just as in an action between two private persons. But this is not the administration of justice properly so called, for the essential element of coercive force is lacking. The state is the judge in its own cause, and cannot exercise constraint against itself. Nevertheless in the wider sense the administration of justice includes the proceedings in a petition of right, no less than a criminal prosecution or an action for debt or damages against a private individual.

The second form of judicial action which does not conform to the essential type is that which results, not in any kind of coercive judgment, but merely in a declaration of right. A litigant may claim the assistance of a court of law, not because his rights have been violated, but because they are uncertain. What he desires may be not any remedy against an adversary for the violation of a right, but an authoritative declaration that the right exists. Such a declaration may be the ground of subsequent proceedings in which the right, having been violated, receives enforcement, but in the meantime there is no enforcement nor any claim to it. Examples of declaratory proceedings are declarations of legitimacy, declarations of nullity of marriage, advice to trustees or executors as to their legal powers and duties, and the authoritative interpretation of wills.

A third form of secondary judicial action includes all those cases in which courts of justice undertake the management and distribution of property. Examples are the administration of a trust, the liquidation of a company by the court, and the realisation and distribution of an insolvent estate.

The fourth and last form includes all those cases in which judicial decrees are employed as the means of creating, transferring, or extinguishing rights. Instances are a decree of divorce or judicial separation, an adjudication of bankruptcy, an order of discharge in bankruptcy, a decree of foreclosure against a mortgagor, an order appointing or removing trustees, a grant of letters of administration, and vesting or charging orders. In all these cases the judgment or decree operates, not as the remedy of a wrong, but as the title of a right.

These secondary forms of judicial action are to be classed under the head of the civil administration of justice. Here, as in its other uses, the term civil is merely residuary; civil justice is all that is not criminal.

We have defined the law as consisting of the rules observed in the administration of justice. We have now seen that the latter term is used in a double sense, and the question therefore arises whether it is the strict or the wide sense that is to be adopted in our definition of the law. There can be no doubt, however, that logic admits, and convenience requires, the adoption of the wider application. We must recognise as law the sum total of the rules that are applied by courts of justice in the exercise of any of their functions, whether these are primary and essential or secondary and accidental. The principles in accordance with which the courts determine a petition of right, decree a divorce, or grant letters of administration, are as truly legal principles as those which govern an action of debt or a suit for specific performance.