interdict

/interdikt/ A prohibitory decree. Ecclesiastical law. An ecclesiastical censure, by which divine services (i.e. sacraments) are prohibited to be administered either to particular persons or in particular places.

Roman and civil law.

A decree of the praetor by means of which, in certain cases determined by the edict, he himself directly commanded what should be done or omitted, particularly in causes involving the right of possession or a quasi possession. In the modern civil law, interdicts are regarded precisely the same as actions, though they give rise to a summary proceeding. Interdicts are either prohibitory, restorative, or exhibitory; the first being a prohibition, the second a decree for restoring possession lost by force, the third a decree for the exhibiting of accounts, etc. An interdict was distinguished from an "action" (actio), properly so called, by the circumstance that the praetor himself decided in the first instance (principaliterj, on the application of the plaintiff, without previously appointing a judex, by issuing a decree commanding what should be done, or left undone. It might be adopted as a remedy in various cases where a regular action could not be maintained, and hence interdicts were at one time more extensively used than were the actiones themselves. Afterwards, however, they fell into disuse, and in the time of Justinian were generally dispensed with