NTSB Board Meeting 4-25-2017 (33455235623)

In law, a hearing is a

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before 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 ...

or other decision-making body or officer, such as a

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

or a legislative committee.

Description

A hearing is generally distinguished from a

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...

in that it is usually shorter and often less formal. In the course of

litigation - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...

, hearings are conducted as oral arguments in support of

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

s, whether to resolve the case without further trial on a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, or to decide discrete issues of law, such as the admissibility of

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...

, that will determine how the trial proceeds. Limited evidence and testimony may also be presented in hearings to supplement the legal arguments.

Types

Terminology varies from country to country, and there are different types of hearings under different legal systems. A preliminary hearing (also known as evidentiary hearing, probable cause hearing, and other variant terms) is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial.

Australia

A hearing is a part of the court process in Australia. There are different types of hearing in a case. There may be several hearings, although not all may be scheduled. These include: *court mentions, where a case first is heard in court; and/or *directions hearing(s) (a brief hearing in front of a judge or commissioner); and *a contest mention, where disputed issues are resolved, this is the part of the hearing where evidence may be adduced (the process of putting forward or presenting evidence or arguments for consideration by the court); a "type of pre-trial hearing which aims to facilitate early guilty pleas and narrow the issues in dispute".

United States

* Congressional hearing * Unofficial hearing In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, one aspect of the " due process revolution" is that many administrative decisions that were once made much less formally must now be preceded by a hearing. An important step in this development was the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

decision in ''

Goldberg v. Kelly ''Goldberg v. Kelly'', 397 U.S. 254 (1970), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires an evidentiary hearing before a recipien ...

'', 397 U.S. 254 (1970). There the Court held that an

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could not terminate a recipient's

welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

benefits without a pre-termination hearing. The decision also illustrated that what constitutes a "hearing" can depend on the context. In ''Goldberg'', the goal of a speedy decision was held to "justify the limitation of the pre-termination hearing to minimum procedural safeguards," which included such basic matters as the right to appear and to

cross-examine In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) and ...

witnesses, but did not include "a complete record and a comprehensive opinion".

References

{{Authority control Legal procedure Legal action

Description

Types

Australia

United States

See also

References