The document is also issued at times when it is deemed that an inferior court is acting outside the normal rules and procedures in the examination of a case.
A writ of prohibition is issued primarily to prevent an inferior court or tribunal from exceeding its jurisdiction in cases pending before it or acting contrary to the rules of natural justice.
It is a collateral matter progress essentially between the two tribunals, an inferior one and other superior one by which the latter, by virtue its power of superintendence over the former, restrains it within its rightful competence.
[9] The rise in the use of writs of prohibition accompanied the consolidation of power in the English monarchy and the growth of the court system in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The growth of the royal bureaucracy accompanied the codification of much of the existing common law with the First Statute of Westminster (1275), which was passed during Edward I's reign.
[11] As the common law courts became more formalized and rigid in their procedure and jurisprudence, they also ceased using the writ of prohibition as a remedy against individual defendants.
The Chancery, unlike the common law court, could provide remedies in cases involving trusts and uses and could give relief based on fraud, accident, or mistake to plaintiffs.
While at the beginning of the transformation of the Chancery into a judicial body, the common law judges often cooperated in helping the new court decide cases or even referred plaintiffs who had equitable claims.
[12] Additionally, the Chancery allowed testimony of interested parties and witnesses and could compel discovery and specific relief, which the common law courts could not.
The first was a contempt proceeding called the "Attachment on Prohibition", wherein the plaintiff and defendant would plead before the managing court on the validity of the writ.
[21] In addition to threatening the king's authority, the existence of jurisdictional overlap jeopardized the uniformity of legal remedies by allowing for forum-shopping.
[22] Thus, while for most obligations a testator would have to sue under common law, an executor or creditor could choose between initiating a proceeding in a secular or ecclesiastical court.
By issuing a writ of prohibition restraining executors or creditors from suing in an ecclesiastical court, this inequitable disparity in forum options could be resolved.