What does AMICUS CURIAE mean??

OhHappyDay

Hi folks,
well I know about Swaggart.
But what I need is the exact lingiustic and judicial meaning of
AMICUS CURIAE,

Anybody willing to help??

Happy Day!

MacHislopp

Hello OhHappyDay,

a good question!

Randy at " Freeminds" has all the answers.

Greetings, J.C.MacHislopp

PS. Basically a Latin term,
literally " a friends of.. the petitioner"
A clever, legal move.

" One who has an accurate knowledge
of God's Word will have no problem
in refuting false religious ideas".

Hi OHD, Amicus Curiae = friend of the court. You could do with posting the context re swaggert but it is likely that some individuals or groups had an interest in the swaggert case and would file submissions/argumentation for the court to consider. These groups are not directly involved in the action but file information that might be helpful for the court to bear in mind. I guess the WTS is in there somewhere?

ISP

ZazuWitts

OhHappyDay:

amicus curiae: (Latin, meaning 'friend of the court'). A party that is not involved directly in a particular litigation but is allowed by the court to advise same court on a matter of law directly affecting the litigation.

Gopher

And closely related to Madame Curie, who discovered radium!

OHD, never mind me.

GopherWhy shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

OhHappyDay

Thanks to u all...

ISP

Hey no problem...OHD. Not bad for $50 + VAT. I emailed the bill to you.

ISP

ChimpGirl

...and when I checked in, 50 other people had had to open this post to find out what amicus curiae meant, although they had never before in their life heard this phrase!

SixofNine

Whenever I am unsure of a Latin word, I look for clues by thinking about what modern words come from the latin.

In this case we have AMICUS, from which we find the modern word amicable, meaning, friendly, and CURIAE, from which we get curry, that distinctive smell that wafts thru the lobby of interstate hotels operated by people of Indian descent.

So we can deduce that AMICUS CURIAE means, literally, FRIENDLY CURRY. Of course, that is just silly, so it is at this point that we really have to put on our detective caps. Obviously, latin is very old, therefore it was used by cultures not so concerned with political correctness. Undoubtably, curry was slang for indian, back in those un-enlightened times. A light goes on now, doesn't it!? Yes, AMICUS CURIAE is an ancient way of saying FRIENDLY INDIAN.

Now, you may say, probably in fact are saying, 'Six, wtf does friendly indian mean, in legal context?' Stay with me friends, four years of romance law shall not be wasted. It is actually very obvious, and I have a feeling some of you are going to have a "doh" moment. Think for a moment about what the word indian brings to mind in the birthplace of the legal process, the United States of America. That's right, you immediately think of 'giving something, and then taking it back' commonly known as "indian giving" (hey, we weren't always so politically correct ourselves).

So there you have it, as used legally, AMICUS CURIAE denotes the opposite of 'taking back', hence the "friendly" prefacing the "Indian".

In context, AMICUS CURIAE would be used in connection with a person or organization that will not, would not, ever "take back" it's words or actions. It denotes rock solid moral character, a moral steadiness, unchanged by the winds of legal and political storms.

Reading this, some no doubt seized upon the idea of "currying" favor, but that is just one of the delicious ironies of frontier etymology. You can be sure that the piquant taste of this irony is not lost on the WT legal dept.

teejay

Six? You're weird.

What does AMICUS CURIAE mean??

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