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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 Supplication (also known as petitioning) is a form of prayer, wherein one party humbly or earnestly asks another party to provide something, either for the party who is doing the supplicating (e.g., "Please spare my life.") or on behalf of someon ...
. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some official and signed by numerous individuals. A petition may be oral rather than written, or may be transmitted via the Internet.


Legal

''Petition'' can also be the title of a legal
pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudi ...
that initiates a legal case. The initial pleading in a civil lawsuit that seeks only money (damages) might be called (in most U.S. courts) a ''complaint''. An initial pleading in a lawsuit that seeks non-monetary or "equitable" relief, such as a request for a writ of '' mandamus'' or ''
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'', custody of a child, or probate of a will, is instead called a ''petition''. Act on petition is a "summary process" used in probate, ecclesiastical and divorce cases, designed to handle matters which are too complex for simple motion. The parties in a case exchange
pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudi ...
s until a cause for a hearing is settled. Black's Law Dictionary specifies it as an obsolete method used in admiralty cases. In the United States, the "act on petition" has been used in maritime cases.


Early history

The first documented petitions were made by slaves building pyramids in Ancient Egypt who petitioned for better working conditions. In pre-modern Imperial China petitions were always sent to an Office of Transmission (''Tongzheng si'' or ''通政司'') where court secretaries read petitions aloud to the emperor.Brook, Timothy (1999). ''The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China'', p. 33. University of California Press. . Petitions could be sent by anybody, from a
scholar-official The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class. Scholar-officials were politicians and governmen ...
to a common farmer, although the petitions were more likely read to the emperor if they were persuasive enough to impeach questionable and corrupt local officials from office. When petitions arrived to the throne, multiple copies were made of the original and stored with the Office of Supervising Secretaries before the original written petition was sent to the emperor. The emergence of petitioning during the reign of Edward I of England (1272-1307) contributed to beginnings of legislative power for the Parliament of England. Petitions became a common form of protest and request to the
British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...
in the 18th and 19th centuries; one million petitions were submitted to the UK's parliament between 1780 and 1918. The largest was the Great/People's Charter, or petition of the
Chartists Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, ...
. The Petition Clause of the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
to the
U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nationa ...
guarantees the right of the people "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The
right to petition The right to petition government for redress of grievances is the right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one's government, without fear of punishment or reprisals. In Europe, Article 44 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of ...
has been held to include the right to file lawsuits against the government.


Modern use

Petitions are commonly used in the U.S. to qualify candidates for public office to appear on a ballot; while anyone can be a
write-in candidate A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot. Depending on electoral law it may be poss ...
, a candidate desiring that his or her name appear on printed
ballots A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...
and other official election materials must gather a certain number of valid signatures from registered voters. In jurisdictions whose laws allow for ballot initiatives, the gathering of a sufficient number of voter signatures qualifies a proposed initiative to be placed on the ballot. The
2003 California recall The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The recall effort sp ...
election, which culminated in the recall of Governor Gray Davis and the election of
Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...
, began when
U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
Darrell Issa employed paid signature gatherers who obtained millions of signatures at a cost to Issa of millions of dollars. Once the requisite number of signatures was obtained on the recall petition, other petitions were circulated by would-be candidates who wanted to appear on the ballot as possible replacements for Davis. After that step, a vote on the recall was scheduled. Other types of petitions include those that sought to free Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment by the former
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid wa ...
government of South Africa. The petitions had no legal effect, but the signatures of millions of people on the petitions represented a moral force that may have helped free Mandela and end apartheid. Non-governmental organizations such as
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
often use petitions in an attempt to exert moral authority in support of various causes. Other nongovernmental subjects of petition drives include corporate personnel decisions. In the United Kingdom, a petition to the parliament in 1990 against
ambulance service Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. ...
cuts attracted 4.5 million signatures. Today, petitions in Britain are often presented through the
UK Parliament petitions website The UK Parliament petitions website (e-petitions) allows members of the public to create and support petitions for consideration by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although the UK Parliament's Petitions Committee considers all petitions ...
, the forerunner of which was set up in 2006. Such
online petitions An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. ...
are a new form of a petition becoming commonplace in the 21st century.
Change.org Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care ab ...
was founded in 2007 and became the world's most popular online petition platform with around 50 million registered users. Recent research by the sociocultural psychologist, Chana Etengoff, has highlighted the therapeutic benefits of petitioning including meaning-making, social action, agency and empowerment.


See also

* City councilPetitions being an important citizen tool in Glasgow's City Council
/ref> * Motion (legal) *
Motion for leave A motion or application for leave is a motion filed with the court seeking permission to deviate from an established rule or procedure of the court. The most common use of a motion for leave is to seek an extension to an already-passed time frame ...
* Online petition *
Special Leave Petitions in India Special Leave Petitions in India (SLP) holds a prime place in the Judiciary of India, and has been provided as a "residual power" in the hands of Supreme Court of India to be exercised only in cases when any substantial question of law is involved, ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Protest tactics