Meat brought in with crab: rest distributed in court (4,7)
I believe the answer is:
star chamber
'court' is the definition.
(I know that Star Chamber is a type of court)
'meat brought in with crab rest distributed' is the wordplay.
'meat' becomes 'ham' (ham is a kind of meat).
'brought in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'distributed' indicates an anagram.
'crab' put next to 'rest' is 'crabrest'.
'crabrest' is an anagram of 'starcber'.
'ham' going into 'starcber' is 'STAR CHAMBER'.
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for star chamber that I've seen before include "Tyrannical court" , "Court abolished in 1641" , "Old-fashioned court" , "Old court" , "tribunal" .)