certiorari Law.
(ˌsɜːʃɪɔːˈrɛəraɪ)
[L. certiōrāri ‘to be certified, informed, apprized, shown’, which occurs in the original Latin of the words of the writ, ‘we, being desirous for certain reasons, that the said record should by you be certified to us’.]
A writ, issuing from a superior court, upon the complaint of a party that he has not received justice in an inferior court, or cannot have an impartial trial, by which the records of the cause are called up for trial in the superior court.
| 1523 in W. H. Turner Select Rec. Oxford 38 By no wryt of error of certiorare. 1641 Jrnls. Ho. Commons II. 162 Upon what Grounds they issued forth those Certioraries. 1649 Fuller Just Man's Fun. 16 If one conceive himself wronged in the Hundred..he may by a certiorari, or an accedas ad curiam, remove it to the King's-Bench or Common-Pleas. 1693 Congreve Doub. Dealer ii. iv, I'll firk him with a certiorari. 1712 Arbuthnot John Bull (1727) 9 He talks of nothing but..replevins, supersedeas's, certiorari's, writs of error, etc. 1881 Times (weekly ed.) 11 June 3/4 The Court granted the rule nisi for the removal here by writ of certiorari. |