Certiorari

Certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or administrative agency. The term comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review.Certiorari is used to bring up into the High Court the decision of some inferior tribunal or authority in order that it may be investigated. If the decision does not pass the test, it is quashed – that is to say, it is declared completely invalid, so that no one need respect it.In every judicial department, well arranged and well organized, there should be a regular, progressive, gradation of jurisdiction; and one supreme tribunal should superintend and govern all the others. Certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or administrative agency. The term comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review. Certiorari was inherited as part of English common law by the countries in the Commonwealth of Nations and by the United States. It has subsequently evolved in the legal system of each nation, as court decisions and statutory amendments are made. In modern law, certiorari is recognized in many jurisdictions, including England and Wales (now called 'quashing order'), Canada, India, Ireland, the Philippines and the United States. With the expansion of administrative law in the 19th and 20th centuries, the writ of certiorari has gained broader use in many countries, to review the decisions of administrative bodies as well as lower courts. The term certioriari (pronounced (/ˌsɜːrʃəˈrɛəraɪ/, /-ˈrɛəri/, or /-ˈrɑːrɪ/ ) comes from the words used at the beginning of these writs when they were written in Latin: certiorārī (volumus) ' to be made certain'. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin verb certioro, certiorare ('to inform, apprise, show'). It is often abbreviated cert. in the United States, particularly in relation to applications to the Supreme Court of the United States for review of a lower court decision. Historical usage dates back to Roman Law. In Roman law, certiorari was suggested in terms of reviewing a case—much as the term is applied today—although the term was also used in writing to indicate the need or duty to inform other parties of a court's ruling. It was a highly technical term appearing only in jurisprudential Latin, most frequently in the works of Ulpian. The term certiorari is often found in Roman literature on law but applied in a philosophical rather than tangible manner when concerning the action of review of a case or aspects of a case. Essentially, it states that the case will be heard. At common law, certiorari was a supervisory writ, serving to keep 'all inferior jurisdictions within the bounds of their authority ... the liberty of the subject, by speedy and summary interposition'. In England and Wales, and separately in Ireland and later Northern Ireland, the Court of King's Bench was tasked with the duty of supervising all lower courts, and had power to issue all writs necessary for the discharge of that duty; the justices of that Court appeared to have no discretion as to whether it was heard, as long as an application for a bill of certiorari met established criteria, as it arose from their duty of supervision. As time went on, certiorari evolved into an important rule of law remedy: In Australia, the power to issue certiorari is part of the inherent jurisdiction of the superior courts. In the courts of England and Wales, the remedy of certiorari evolved into a general remedy for the correction of plain error, to bring decisions of an inferior court or tribunal or public authority before the superior court for review so that the court can determine whether to quash such decisions.