BARRATRY (O. Fr. bareter, barater, to

See also:

• BARTER (from Fr. barater, to truck, to exchange)

barter or cheat)  , in English criminal law, the offence (more usually called common barratry) of constantly inciting and stirring up quarrels in disturbance of the peace, either in courts or elsewhere . It is an offence both at common law and by statute, and is punishable by fine and imprisonment . By a statute of 1726, if the person guilty of common barratry belonged to the profession of the law, he was disabled from practising in the future . It is a cumulative offence, and it is necessary to prove at least three commissions of the act . For nearly two centuries there had been no record of an indictment having been preferred for this offence, but in 1889 a case occurred at the Guildford summer assizes, R. v . Bellgrove (The Times, 8th July 1889) . As, however, the defendant was convicted of another offence, the charge was not proceeded upon . (See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law; Russell, Crimes and Misdemeanours; Stephen, Criminal Law.) In marine insurance barratry is any kind of fraud committed upon the owner or insurers of a ship by a master with the intention of benefiting himself at their expense . Continental jurists give a wider meaning to barratry, as meaning any wilful act by the master or crew, by whatever motive induced, whereby the owners or charterers are damnified . In bills of lading it is usual to except it from the shipowners' liability (see AFFREIGHTMENT) . In Scotland, barratry is the crime committed by a judge who. is induced by bribery to pronounce judgment .