An electrosurgical system comprising a generator and an instrument, where the instrument comprises: a hand piece with a handle 22 that moves between a first and second position relative to the hand piece first and second jaws that move from first to second conditions in response to movement of the handle 22 a latch mechanism to maintain a predetermined closure force between the jaws in their second position where the system further comprises first and second energy actuation switches 26,4603, each being able to switch energy to the jaws, where the first switch 26 is enabled for user actuation whilst the second switch 4603 is inhibited from actuation and visa-versa depending upon whether the latch mechanism is engaged. First switch 26 may be located upon the instrument and second switch 4302 may by automatically actuated when handle 26 is moved to produce the predetermined jaw closure force. There may be a latch over-ride mechanism, which when actuated disables the latch mechanism, where first switch 26 may be enabled for actuation and the second switch 4306 disabled from actuation when the latch override mechanism is not actuated. Actuating the override mechanism may cause a signal to be sent to the generator.
