FINEM FACERE
finem facere (fI-n<<schwa>>m fay-s<<schwa>>-ree). [Latin] Hist. 1. To make a composition
or compromise; to relinquish a claim in exchange for consideration.
“In the thirteenth century the king’s justices wield a wide and a ‘common law’ power of
ordering that an offender be kept in custody. They have an equally wide power of discharging him
upon his ‘making fine with the king.’ We must observe the language of the time. In strictness they
have no power to ‘impose a fine.’ No tribunal of this period, unless we are mistaken, is ever said
to impose a fine. To order the offender to pay so much money to the king — this the judge may
not do. If he did it, he would be breaking or evading the Great Charter, for an amercement should
be affeered, not by royal justices, but by neighbours of the wrong-doer. What the judges can do is
this: — they can pronounce a sentence of imprisonment and then allow the culprit to ‘make fine,’
that is to make an end (finem facere) of the matter by paying or finding security for a certain sum
of money. In theory the fine is a bilateral transaction, a bargain; it is not ‘imposed,’ it is ‘made.’ ” 2
Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of
Edward I 517 (2d ed. 1899).
- To make a settlement of a penalty. • Magna Carta (ch. 55) specifically limited “[a]ll fines
which were made with us unjustly and contrary to the law of the land …” (Omnes fines qui injuste
et contra legem terrae facti sunt nobiscum).[Blacks Law 8th]