Prohibition

The name of a writ issuing to forbid any court to proceed in any cause there depending, on the suggestion that the cognizance thereof helongs not to such court; a writ which commands the person or tribunal to whom it is directed not to do something which, by the suggestion of the relator, the court is informed he is about to do.

United States V. Hoffman, 4 Wall. 158.

It is a remedy provided by the common law against the encroachment of jurisdiction. This writ is of English origin, being one of the great common-law prerogative writs long in use. It is known and recognized as a judicial remedy in most of the states, yet is but little regulated, 80 far as we are aware, by statute, the English precedents and practice being very generally followed in this country. In early times, in England, the chief use of prohibitions is said to have been to restrain the ecclesiastical courts from interfering in matters which were properly subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of common law; and the clergy complained earnestly that the commonlaw courts extended their interference with the spiritual courts by means of their prohibitions too far. (See Case of Prohibitions, 12 Coke, 59.) Power to issue it was vested not only in the king's bench, but also in the courts of chancery, exchequer, and common pleas; and it might issue to any inferior court of common law, or to the courts of the counties palatine, to the county courts or courts baron, or to the courts christian or ecclesiastical, the university courts, the court of chivalry or the court of admiralty, when they were about to act la any matter not within their jurisdiction, or were to transgress the bounds preerf prohibition have been chiefly the following: To commissioners, justices, and inferior courts generally, whether civil or criminal, for assuming unwarranted jurisdiction. To courts of appeal, not excepting even the judicial committee of the privy council. (Darby v. Cosens, 1 Durnf. §• E. 552; Exp. Smyth, 3 Ad. ^ E. 719.) Prohibition differs from injunction, in that prohibition is directed to a court as well as to the opposite party; whereas an injunction is directed to the party alone.

By the English practice, as prescribed by Stat. 1 Wm. IV. ch.

21, an application for a writ of prohibition is made by motion, supported by affidavits. But if the point is too nice and doubtful to be decided upon motion, then the party applying for the prohibition is directed to declare in prohibition, — that is, to deliver a concise statement of the proceedings in respect of which he applies for a prohibition, and praying that a writ of prohibition may issue. The " declaration in prohibition " was formerly based on the fiction that the party against whom the declaration was filed had proceeded in the suit, notwithstanding the writ of prohibition.

8 Bl. Com. 113, 114; 3 Steph. Com. 635-638.

No prohibition will issue after sentence, unless the want of jurisdiction below appears on the face of the proceedings.

Buggin V. Bennett, 4 Burr. 2035.

Under the judicature act, 1873, § 24, subd. 5, no cause or proceeding at any time pending in the high court of justice, or before the coui't of appeal, shall be restrained by prohibition or injunction. PROJECT; PROJET. These words, English and French, are often applied to the draught, plan, or scheme of a law or treaty, considered as put forward for consideration and adoption.