PROHIBITION IN LAW, a term meaning the action of forbidding or preventing by an order, a decree, etc. As de fined by Blackstone, prohibition is "a writ directed to the judge and parties of a suit in any inferior court, commanding them to cease from the prosecution thereof, upon a surmise either that the cause originally or some collateral matter arising therein does not belong to that jurisdiction, but to the cognizance of some other court." A writ of prohibition is a prerogative writ—that is to say, it does not issue as of course, but is granted only on proper grounds being shown. Before the Judicature Acts prohibition was granted by one of the superior courts at Westminster; it also issued in certain cases from the court of chancery. It is now granted by the High Court of Justice. By the Judicature Act, 1873, s. 24, it is provided that no proceeding in the High Court of Justice or the court of appeal is to be restrained by prohibition, a stay of pro ceedings taking its place where necessary. In the case of courts
of quarter sessions, the same result is generally obtained by certiorari (see WRIT).
In Scots law prohibition is not used in the English sense. The same result is obtained by suspension or reduction. In the United States the Supreme Court has power to issue a prohibition to the district courts when proceeding as courts of admiralty and mari time jurisdiction. Most of the States have also their own law upon the subject, generally giving power to the supreme judicial authority in the State to prohibit courts of inferior jurisdiction.
(See LIQUOR LAWS; TEMPERANCE.) Prohibition is a writ which lies to restrain the unlawful exer cise of judicial functions on the part of a lower court, issuing from a court of higher jurisdiction. Again, it may be used to restrain an official from doing an administrative, ministerial or legislative act not falling within his province.