writ of prohibition
- noun
- /rɪt əv prəˌhɪbɪˈʃən/
- Formal
:
recurso de prohibición
- The lawyer filed a writ of prohibition to prevent the district court from proceeding with the unlawful case.
Examples
-
If Lester denied the motion to disqualify and cites legal insufficiency, Zimmerman can file a petition for a writ of prohibition with the appellate court.
Blog text (23) -
The appellate court issued a writ of prohibition to stop the lower court from hearing the case.
-
After reviewing the jurisdiction, the higher court decided to issue a writ of prohibition against the trial court.
Surface Forms
Morphology
writ + of + prohibition
The constituents 'writ' (legal document) and 'prohibition' (forbidding) give a clear general sense of 'a legal order that forbids something', so a B1 learner who knows those words would likely grasp the basic idea. However, the specific procedural meaning — a higher court order stopping a lower court from proceeding for jurisdictional reasons — is specialized and not predictable from the parts, so full understanding requires legal knowledge.
Etymology
Writ of prohibition comes from old courts. A writ was a written order and prohibition meant 'to stop', so a higher court would send this order to tell a lower court to stop doing something outside its power. That's why today it means an order to halt a lower court that has no right to continue.
