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{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 A petitioner is a
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
who pleads with governmental institution for a legal remedy or a redress of grievances, through use of a
petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offi ...
.


In the courts

The petitioner may seek a legal remedy if the state or another private
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
has acted unlawfully. In this case, the petitioner, often called a
plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of t ...
, will submit a plea to a
court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
to resolve the dispute.


To the government

On the other hand, the petitioner may be complaining against the law it to "... make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances". A petitioner need not seek a change to an existing law. Often, petitioners speak against (or in support of) legislative proposals as these progress.


The Whig party

A group of 17th century English politicians became known as Petitioners, due to their support of the
Exclusion Bill The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1679 until 1681 in the reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Three Exclusion bills sought to exclude the King's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Sco ...
, a bill which would prevent the succession to the throne of the
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
James, Duke of York James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious ...
, the heir apparent of King Charles II. After the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
passed the Bill, Charles dissolved Parliament; when a new Parliament was elected shortly afterwards, Charles simply refused to summon it to meet. The Petitioners got their name from the many petitions they sent to Charles urging him to summon Parliament; they were opposed by the
Abhorrers Abhorrers, the name given in 1679 to the persons who expressed their abhorrence at the action of those who had signed petitions urging King Charles II of England to assemble Parliament. Feeling against Catholics, and especially against James, Du ...
, who resisted the Exclusion Bill and were in no hurry to see a pro-Exclusion Bill Parliament meet. In the heat of the dispute, the two factions traded insulting epithets; with the result that the Petitioners became known as the Whigs and their opponents as Tories.


See also

*
Petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offi ...
* Special Leave Petitions in India * Old Order German Baptist Brethren, also called "Petitioners" Common law legal terminology Judicial legal terminology Civil law legal terminology