1.1 Definitions

1.1 Adjudication is, conventionally, the process of judging, a court's pronouncement of a judgment or decree or the judgment so given.1 It has been said that a judge or an arbitrator adjudicates and in this sense adjudication is or should therefore be synonymous with a judicial process.2 From 1976, standard forms of construction sub-contracts began to contain provisions for an ‘adjudicator’ to decide disputes between the sub-contractor and the main contractor as to the entitlement to payment pending a final resolution by arbitration.3 The use of such provisions was adopted in other forms during the 1980s and by 1992, ‘adjudication’ could be defined as a procedure where, by contract, a summary interim decision-making power in respect of disputes was vested in a third party individual (the adjudicator) who was usually not involved in the day-to-day performance or administration of the contract, and was neither an arbitrator nor connected with the state.4 A party to a construction contract regulated by Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 now has the right5 to refer a dispute arising under the contract for adjudication under a procedure complying with the requirements of section 108 of that Act. The word ‘adjudication’ is thus commonly used now to denote the process whereby a decision is reached pursuant to the provisions of the Act. A fuller definition has been suggested as that of a process by which within a short and defined time, and with a curtailed procedure left primarily to the adjudicator, all disputes under most construction contracts have to be presented to