Judicial writs

Orders issued by a judge in the English courts after a lawsuit had begun.

An original writ, issued out of the Chancery, was the proper document for starting a lawsuit in England for hundreds of years, but courts could issue judicial writs during the course of a proceeding or to give effect to their orders after the lawsuit had commenced. Unlike original writs, judicial writs were issued under the private seal of the courts rather than the king's great seal, and they were sent out in the name of the chief judge of the court hearing the case rather than in the king's name. The capias was one form of a judicial writ.

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JUDICIAL WRITS, Eng. practice. The capias and all other writs subsequent to the original writ not issuing out of chancery, but from the court into which the original was returnable, and being grounded on what had passed in that court in consequence of the sheriff's return, were called judicial writs, in contradistinction to the writs issued out of chancery, which were called original writs. 3 Bl. Com. 282.