Interlocutory is a legal term which can refer to an

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

, sentence,

decree A decree is a law, legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state, judge, monarch, royal figure, or other relevant Authority, authorities, according to certain procedures. These procedures are usually defined by the constitution, Legislativ ...

, or

judgment Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal trial ...

, given in an intermediate stage between the commencement and conclusion of a

cause of action A cause of action or right of action, in law, is a set of facts sufficient to justify suing to obtain money or property, or to justify the enforcement of a legal right against another party. The term also refers to the legal theory upon which a ...

, used to provide a temporary or provisional decision on an issue. Thus, an interlocutory order is not final and is not subject to immediate appeal. In many U.S.

legal system A legal system is a set of legal norms and institutions and processes by which those norms are applied, often within a particular jurisdiction or community. It may also be referred to as a legal order. The comparative study of legal systems is th ...

s, interlocutory orders are not

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

able, save for in a few extraordinary cases. Interlocutory orders are orders that are issued by a court while a case is still ongoing, before the final resolution of the case. When the case is concluded, any aspect of an interlocutory order that has not become moot may be challenged in an appeal from the final judgment. However, in other legal systems, such as in England and Wales, in Hong Kong, and in Canada, interlocutory orders in civil matters can be appealed by leave of the appellate court. In criminal matters in Canada, the general rule is that there are no interlocutory appeals, except where Parliament has expressly provided. Australian courts and tribunals generally discourage appeals against interlocutory decisions. In

Scots law Scots law () is the List of country legal systems, legal system of Scotland. It is a hybrid or mixed legal system containing Civil law (legal system), civil law and common law elements, that traces its roots to a number of different histori ...

an interlocutory order is called an "interlocutor".

References

Legal terminology Legal procedure {{law-term-stub

See also

References