Habeas Corpus: Latin: a court petition which orders that a person being detained be produced before a judge for a hearing to decide whether the detention is lawful. | Legal Definition of Habeas Corpus

Habit: A regular response to a specific situation. | Legal Definition of Habit

Habitual Offender: A person who is convicted and sentenced for crimes over a period of time and even after serving sentences of incarceration, demonstrates a propensity towards future criminal conduct. | Legal Definition of Habitual Offender

Habitual Residence: Ordinary residence. | Legal Definition of Habitual Residence

Hadley v Baxendale, Rule in: A rule of contract law which limits the defendant of a breach of contract case to damages which can reasonably be anticipated to flow from the breach. | Legal Definition of Hadley v Baxendale, Rule in

Half-Secret Trust: A secret trust in which the donor announces the trust but not the objects or the beneficiaries. | Legal Definition of Half-Secret Trust

Halfway House: A temporary group home designed to facilitate the reentry into society of prison inmates. | Legal Definition of Halfway House

Halliday Order: A special Court order in regards to document disclosure where, in special cases, a lawyer for a litigant, as an officer of the Court, first review documents from specified sources, or at large, and identifies and proposes to set aside and distinguish documents weighed relevancy, for reasons of privilege, privacy, confidentiality, or the potential personal embarrassment of the party given the personal nature of the information in a document. | Legal Definition of Halliday Order

Harassment: Unsolicited words or conduct which tend to annoy, alarm or abuse another person. | Legal Definition of Harassment

Harmless Error: An error which beyond a reasonable doubt, did not contribute to a decision. | Legal Definition of Harmless Error

Hatch Act: An American statute which controls political activity of government employees. | Legal Definition of Hatch Act

Hate Crime: The public incitation of hatred against an identifiable group. | Legal Definition of Hate Crime

Hawaiian: A descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands which exercised sovereignty and subsisted in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. | Legal Definition of Hawaiian

Hawala: Arabic: a form of international money transfer often used to conduct money laundering. | Legal Definition of Hawala

Hawker: A person who goes about carrying goods from house to house to endeavour to sell them there. | Legal Definition of Hawker

Healing Period: A term of disability insurance which bridges, in time, the employee between the injury or sickness, and maximum medical improvement. | Legal Definition of Healing Period

Hearing: The presentation of evidence before an adjudicating body as may be required for a full disclosure and challenge of alleged facts. | Legal Definition of Hearing

Hearsay: Evidence that is offered by a witness of which they do not have direct knowledge but, rather, their testimony is based on what others have said to them. | Legal Definition of Hearsay

Heart Attack: Damage to the heart muscle by occlusion of blood supply. | Legal Definition of Heart Attack

Heart Attack Standard: A finding or allegation that conditions of employment are so unusual or extraordinary conditions as to have the potential to cause mental disorder or a heart attack. | Legal Definition of Heart Attack Standard

Heat of Passion: A sudden uncontrollable state of mind provoked by a blow or some other personal provocation. | Legal Definition of Heat of Passion

Heckler's Veto: (USA) A controversial legal position taken by law enforcement officers based on an alleged right to restrict freedom of speech where such expression may create disorder or provoke violence. | Legal Definition of Heckler's Veto

Hedonic Damages: Damages sought for loss of enjoyment of life. | Legal Definition of Hedonic Damages

Heir: A beneficiary of a will or an intestacy. | Legal Definition of Heir

Henson Trust: A discretionary trust for a person in receipt of social assistance or disability benefits designed to top-up that person's income but without making them ineligible. | Legal Definition of Henson Trust

Hereditament: Something which can be inherited. | Legal Definition of Hereditament

Hereditas: Latin: the estate of a deceased person. | Legal Definition of Hereditas

Hereditas Damnosa: Latin: an inheritance that is more of a burden than a benefit. | Legal Definition of Hereditas Damnosa

Hereditas Jacens: Latin: an unclaimed estate. | Legal Definition of Hereditas Jacens

Heresy: A historic criminal offence comprised of the act of public denial of Christian doctrines. | Legal Definition of Heresy

Heriot: A right in ancient common law of a land lord, upon the death of his tenant, to pick any beast belonging to the estate of the deceased tenant. | Legal Definition of Heriot

Heritable Obligation: A legal obligation or right which is not extinguished by the death of the person who held those rights, or was liable for the obligation, but are transferred to the estate. | Legal Definition of Heritable Obligation

Heritage: Scot law: real property. | Legal Definition of Heritage

High Seas: A term of international and maritime law; the open ocean, not part of the exclusive economic zone, territorial sea or internal waters of any state. | Legal Definition of High Seas

Himalaya Clause: A clause in a transportation contract purporting to extend liability limitations which benefit the carrier, to others who act as agents for the carrier such as stevedores or longshoremen. | Legal Definition of Himalaya Clause

Hippocratic Oath: An oath of professional conduct sworn by physicians at the commencement of their career. | Legal Definition of Hippocratic Oath

Hiraba: Muslim law: organized crime such as highway robbery. | Legal Definition of Hiraba

Hired Gun: An expert with a bias or who adapts his or her expert evidence to the requirements of the party that calls him/her as a witness. | Legal Definition of Hired Gun

Hissing: A common law right given to the audiences of public performances to openly express their opinion of the performance. | Legal Definition of Hissing

Hitman Scam: A consumer scam usually conducted by email in which the recipient is approached by an alleged assassin who seeks money in lieu of completing his task. | Legal Definition of Hitman Scam

Hockey: A game played on ice in which opposing teams of six players each, try to drive a small black hard rubber disk called a puck into the oppising goal by hitting it with a curved stick. | Legal Definition of Hockey

Hodge's Case: A rule limiting the use of circumstantial evidence in the trial of a criminal offence. | Legal Definition of Hodge's Case

Holograph Will: A will written entirely in the testator’s handwriting and not witnessed. | Legal Definition of Holograph Will

Home Invasion: A break and enter of occupied residential premises with forced confinement, assault or battery of occupants. | Legal Definition of Home Invasion

Home-Country Rule: A form of international agreement in which a host country allows a foreign national to continue to fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of his country of origin even as regards acts or commerce in the host country. | Legal Definition of Home-Country Rule

Homicide: The act or omission of one human being, which ends the life of another. | Legal Definition of Homicide

Homosexuality: Sexual contact between two persons of the same sex. | Legal Definition of Homosexuality

Honest Services Doctrine: (USA) A judicially developed criminal offence of bribes or kickbacks which seek or in fact deprive another a right to honest services. | Legal Definition of Honest Services Doctrine

Honour of the Crown: A phrase of Canadian aboriginal law in reference to the sometimes generous attitude the law takes to the definition of aboriginal rights. | Legal Definition of Honour of the Crown

Hors de combat: French: outside of combat. A civilian or a soldier who has relinquished or been extricated from combat status. | Legal Definition of Hors de combat

Hospital: A health care facility which offers medical treatment including, as may be necessary, board and lodging and necessary incidents such as nursing care or use of technical equipment. | Legal Definition of Hospital

Hostile Witness: A party's witness who demonstrates such adversity to answering questions that the trial judge allows leading questions to be put to that witness. | Legal Definition of Hostile Witness

Hostile Work Environment: A pattern of ongoing and persistent harassment severe enough to alter the conditions of employment. | Legal Definition of Hostile Work Environment

Hostis Humani Generis: Latin: the enemy of mankind. | Legal Definition of Hostis Humani Generis

Hotchpot: The mixing of property for the purposing of effecting a proportionate division. | Legal Definition of Hotchpot

House Arrest: The judicial obligation upon an individual that she/he be forbidden to leave his or her place of residence except for limited, specified circumstances. | Legal Definition of House Arrest

Hudud: Muslim law: divine punishments; the category of crimes most egregious and therefore most severely punished. | Legal Definition of Hudud

Hue and Cry: A community fugitive-containment strategy of medieval England where a yell went up denouncing a crime, and all within earshot took up the chase. | Legal Definition of Hue and Cry

Human Dignity: An individual or group's sense of self-respect and self-worth, physical and psychological integrity and empowerment. | Legal Definition of Human Dignity

Human Remains: The body of a deceased person, in whole or in parts, regardless of its stage of decomposition. | Legal Definition of Human Remains

Human Right: An individual's statutory right to equal treatment and free from discrimination prohibited by statute and which, generally, provides a civil remedy to provide compensation or to punish such discrimination when it is reported. | Legal Definition of Human Right

Human Trafficking: The transportation or commercial exchange of an individual by coercion or deception for the purpose of exploitation. | Legal Definition of Human Trafficking

Humanitarian and Compassionate Grounds: A criteria of immigration law; an unusual, undeserved or disproportionate hardship caused to a person seeking consideration. | Legal Definition of Humanitarian and Compassionate Grounds

Humanitarian Doctrine: A principle of tort law which requires an individual to take every action at hand to avoid an accident where peril to another human being is otherwise imminent. | Legal Definition of Humanitarian Doctrine

Hung Jury: A jury which is unable to arrive at a required unanimous or near unanimous verdict. | Legal Definition of Hung Jury

Husband-Wife Privilege: A special right that married persons have to keep communications between them secret and even inaccessible to a court of law. | Legal Definition of Husband-Wife Privilege

Hybrid Offence: A criminal offence for which the prosecutor has the option of charging as an offence punishable by summary conviction or as an indictable offence. | Legal Definition of Hybrid Offence

Hypothec: A charge on property upon which an unpaid creditor may enforce payment of the debt. | Legal Definition of Hypothec