DECLARATORY JUDGMENT

in law, a judicial opinion intended merely to fix or elucidate a question or questions of law or the rights of litigants that were previously uncertain or doubtful. A declaratory judgment is binding but is distinguished from other judgments or court opinions in that it lacks an executory process. It simply declares or defines rights to be observed or wrongs to be eschewed by a plaintiff, a defendant, or both, or expresses the court's view of a contested question of law, without ordering that anything be done. Although a declaratory judgment must deal with a real dispute, as opposed to a hypothetical dispute, it is not necessary that an actual wrong, giving rise either to criminal liability or to a claim for civil damages, have been done or even threatened or contemplated. Declaratory judgment was established in U.S. law by a federal statute, the Declaratory Judgment Act (1934).