When people take the law into their own hands and form some kinds of courts that are illegal.
Example:
George: Did you hear about a man stealing my father’s car?
Franco: What’s going on with him?
George: He was beaten to death by my neighbours, finally.
Franco: What a kangaroo court! Why didn’t those people take him to the legal court?
George: Kangaroo court gives criminals direct punishment, indeed.
Did you know?
The origin of 'kangaroo court' is unknown, although, given that kangaroos are native nowhere else, we might expect the term to have originated in Australia. As always, a lack of a definite origin encourages speculative claims, which may be an appropriate word in this context as one frequently repeated supposed derivation relates to 'claim jumping' in the California Gold Rush - hence the allusion to kangaroos. That's quite a plausible notion. Kangaroos and their claim to fame, so to speak, i.e. jumping, were known in the USA by the early 1800s, so there's no reason to limit the derivation to Australia. Also, the earliest known citation of the term is American and appears in a collection of magazine articles by Philip Paxton (the pen name of Samuel Adams Hammett), which were published in 1853 under the title of A stray Yankee in Texas:
"By a unanimous vote, Judge G-- was elected to the bench and the 'Mestang' or 'Kangaroo Court' regularly organized." (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/kangaroo-court.html)
Example:
George: Did you hear about a man stealing my father’s car?
Franco: What’s going on with him?
George: He was beaten to death by my neighbours, finally.
Franco: What a kangaroo court! Why didn’t those people take him to the legal court?
George: Kangaroo court gives criminals direct punishment, indeed.
Did you know?
The origin of 'kangaroo court' is unknown, although, given that kangaroos are native nowhere else, we might expect the term to have originated in Australia. As always, a lack of a definite origin encourages speculative claims, which may be an appropriate word in this context as one frequently repeated supposed derivation relates to 'claim jumping' in the California Gold Rush - hence the allusion to kangaroos. That's quite a plausible notion. Kangaroos and their claim to fame, so to speak, i.e. jumping, were known in the USA by the early 1800s, so there's no reason to limit the derivation to Australia. Also, the earliest known citation of the term is American and appears in a collection of magazine articles by Philip Paxton (the pen name of Samuel Adams Hammett), which were published in 1853 under the title of A stray Yankee in Texas:
"By a unanimous vote, Judge G-- was elected to the bench and the 'Mestang' or 'Kangaroo Court' regularly organized." (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/kangaroo-court.html)
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