Law Dictionary of Legal Terminology

LETTERS OF REQUEST

LETTERS OF REQUEST, Eng. eccl. law, An instrument by which a judge of an inferior court waives or remits his own jurisdiction in favor of a court of appeal immediately superior to it.

2. Letters of request, in general, lie only where an appeal would lie, and lie only to the next immediate court of appeal, waiving merely the primary jurisdiction to the proper appellate court, except letters of request from the most inferior ecclesiastical court, which may be direct to the court of arches, although one or two courts of appeal may, by this, be ousted of their jurisdiction as courts of appeal. 2 Addams, R. 406. The effect of letters of request is to give jurisdiction to the appellate court in the first instance. Id. See a form of letters of request in 2 Chit. Pr. 498, note.