Information

Information, Criminal, is a complaint exhibited before the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice against anyone for some misdemeanour. It differs from an indictment mainly in that the latter is found by the oath of a grand jury, whereas an information is simply the allegation of the person exhibiting it. Informations are of two kinds - (1) those partly at the suit of the sovereign and partly at that of a subject; and (2) those which are in the name of the sovereign only and are filed by his own immediate officer, the Attorney-General. Informations of the former kind are usually exhibited under penal statutes, which impose some penalty on the offender should he be convicted (one part of which goes to the sovereign, the other to the informer).