Law. [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 Funeral, 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.
1694. Congreve, Doub.-Dealer, II. iv. 19. 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.
