What about the amicus curiae in the United Kingdom?

Question

Do you have any information about the amicus curiae device in the United Kingdom?
I’m a French student and I do my Ph. D dissertion on the amicus curiae and I’m looking for informations, .... many thanks. Specially if you wrote smthg about it, could you send it at [e-mail].

Answer 1

You should consult a law librarian (or any librarian where you're completing your Ph.D) The kind of help you need is not likely to be found on Yahoo! Answers.

Answer 2

Amicus curiae (plural amici curiae) is a legal Latin phrase, literally translated as "friend of the court," that refers to someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information on a point of law or some other aspect of the case to assist the court in deciding a matter before it. The information may be a legal opinion in the form of a brief, testimony that has not been solicited by any of the parties, or a learned treatise on a matter that bears on the case. The decision whether to admit the information lies with the discretion of the court.

Answer 3

Try this: Samuel Krislov, The Amicus Brief: From Friendship to Advocacy.

Good luck.

Answer 4

In the US a "friend of the court" brief is usually only encountered at the appellate level. The US Supreme Court receives many many of these each term, many of them at the highest level of legal scholarship, and thus, these briefs really can and do influence the court's decision. Lower down the chain, such briefs mainly confine themselves to existing precedent, and any variance the case at hand displays. Such briefs can also be solicited by any court at any level, as when a technical or scientific question needs to be clarified at a professional level, i.e., a brief can be considered to some extent expert testimony.