FIAT

(Latin: “Let it be done.”) In English practice. A short order or warrant of a judge or magistrate directing some act to be done; an authority issuing from some competent source for the doing of some legal act. One of the proceedings in the English bankrupt practice, being a power, signed by the lord chancellor, addressed to the court of bankruptcy, authorizing the petitioning creditor to prosecute his complaint before it. 2 Steph. Comm. 199. By the statute 12 & 13 Vict. c. 116> flats were abolished. Fiat justitia. Let justice be done. On a petition to the king for his warrant to bring a writ of error in parliament, he writes on the top of the petition, “Ftat justitia,” and then the writ of error is made out, etc Jacob. Fiat ut petitur. Let it be done as it is asked. A form of granting a petition. Joint fiat. In English law. A fiat in bankruptcy, issued against two or more trading partners. Fiat justitia, mat coelum. Let right be done, though the heavens should fall. Fiat prout fieri consuevit, (nil temere novandum.) Let it be done as it hath used to be done, (nothing must be rashly innovated.) Jenk. Cent 116, case 39 ; Branch, Princ.