Plain English
Glossary
The Court’s Latin and legal words, one plain line each.
- Certiorari
- An order by which the Supreme Court agrees to review a case and calls up the record from the level below.
- Contempt
- Disobeying the Court or its orders, or disrupting its work; the Court can punish it.
- Habeas corpus
- An order requiring whoever keeps a member under a restriction, such as a ban or a mute, to justify it to the Court or lift it.
- Mandamus
- An order telling an official to carry out a duty the rules require of them.
- Precedent
- An earlier ruling that later cases must follow.
- Prohibition
- An order stopping an official or a lower body from acting beyond its powers.
- Remand
- Sending a case back to the level below to decide again, following the higher court’s directions. On this site: “Send back”.
- Show cause
- An order requiring someone to explain why the Court should not take a step against them, such as finding them in contempt.
- Stay
- A pause: the decision is not enforced until the appeal or petition is decided.