Hearing (law)
formal examination of a case before a judge, court, government agency, or legislative committee; generally shorter and less formal than a trial, involving oral arguments and limited evidence to resolve legal questions or discrete issues
In law, a hearing is the formal examination of a case (civil or criminal) before a judge. It is a proceeding before a court or other decision-making body or officer, such as a government agency or a legislative committee.
Description
A hearing is generally distinguished from a trial in that it is usually shorter and often less formal.
During the course of litigation, oral arguments are presented in support of motions at hearings. The purpose of these arguments may be to resolve the case without further trial, such as through a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, or to decide discrete issues of law, such as the admissibility of evidence, which will determine how the trial proceeds. Limited evidence and testimony may also be presented at hearings to supplement the legal arguments.
Types
Terminology varies from country to country, and there are different types of hearings under different legal systems.
A preliminary hearing (also known as evidentiary hearing, probable cause hearing, and other variant terms) is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial.
Australia
A hearing is a part of the court process in Australia. There are different types of hearing in a case.
The public source identifies “Hearing (law)” as formal examination of a case before a judge, court, government agency, or legislative committee; generally shorter and less formal than a trial, involving oral arguments and limited evidence to resolve legal questions or discrete issues. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hearing, formal and examination.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hearing (law)”, the useful work is to connect “formal examination of a case before a judge, court, government agency, or legislative committee; generally shorter and less formal than a trial, involving oral arguments and limited evidence to resolve legal questions or discrete issues” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q545861. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hearing (law)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.