Prima facie

Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning at first face, rendered in modern English as on the face of it or based on first impression. In legal use it signifies that, on initial examination, sufficient corroborating evidence appears to exist to support a case, and in common law jurisdictions prima facie evidence is proof that, unless rebutted, would be enough to establish a given proposition or fact. Most legal proceedings across jurisdictions require a prima facie case to be established before they can move forward to test the evidence and reach a ruling, and the term also has a use in academic philosophy alongside its primary legal meaning. A related Latin phrase, ex facie, meaning on the face of it, is instead used to indicate that a document's own explicit provisions contain a defect requiring further investigation. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/