{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 A petitioner is a

person A person (plural, : 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 pr ...

who pleads with governmental institution for a

legal remedy A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of Civil law (common law), civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a Sentence (law), penalty, or ma ...

or a redress of grievances, through use of a petition.

In the courts

The petitioner may seek a legal remedy if the state or another private

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 the ...

, will submit a plea to a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and carry out the administration of justice in Civil law (common law), civil, C ...

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, 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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

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 R ...

, 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. ...

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, 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 A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

In the courts

To the government

The Whig party

See also