"beginning of proceedings" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is typically used in legal or formal contexts to refer to the start of a legal process or a formal event. Here is an example sentence: "The judge declared the beginning of proceedings and asked the jury to take their seats."
Judge Williams added: "You have misled the court from the beginning of proceedings to the very bitter end".
At the beginning of proceedings, inhabitants of the 99 homes on the estate were worried by the lack of consultation.
A Kaurismaki acceptance speech would be a great event, assum- ing that some refreshments have been available before the beginning of proceedings.
At the beginning of proceedings there were nearly 200 ideas floating around, but by the time the final presentations took place on Sunday afternoon there were only around 50 that had gone the distance.
Shortly after the beginning of proceedings, about 15 protesters who had posed as guests sitting in the upstairs gallery suddenly tossed hundreds of fake $100 bills onto the chamber's floor below, a prank meant to call attention to the issue of campaign finance reform.
The first is the prospect of national elections next year; the second is the beginning of proceedings against President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide over Darfur; and the third is the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.
On Friday, Canada's justice department approved the beginning of extradition proceedings for Meng, who has filed a civil lawsuit against Canada over her arrest.
Clifford Krauss (NYT) ECUADOR: EX-PRESIDENT SOUGHT The supreme court has ordered the beginning of extradition proceedings against former President Abdalá Bucaram, who has been living in exile in Panama since being removed from office in February 1997 on grounds of "mental incapacity".
The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, also raised the issue at the beginning of parliamentary proceedings on Wednesday, saying Labor wanted to ensure "that the amendments do in fact match up with the recommendations".
The petitioner in the present case objected, at the very beginning of the proceedings before the court-martial, that it had no jurisdiction to try him on the charges laid before it; and the facts upon which his objection to its jurisdiction are based, as well as the final judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of prohibition, appear of record.
