Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

de contumace capiendo

n. [Law Latin "for arresting a contumacious person"] Hist. A writ issuing out of the Court of Chancery at the request of an ecclesiastical court that has found a person to be in contempt. 0 This writ came into use after the Ecclesiastical Courts Act of 1813 removed ecclesiastical courts' power to excommunicate litigants who failed to comply with a court order. Cf. EXCOMMUNICATO CAPIENDO. "In 1812 the case of Mary Ann Dix - a woman not of age, who was imprisoned for two years on a writ de excommunicato capiendo for not paying costs in a suit for defamation - aroused the Legislature. In the following year it was enacted that excommunication should cease to exist as part of the process of the ecclesiastical courts to enforce appearance, and as a punishment for contempt .... [F]or the writ de excommunicato capiendo was substituted the writ de contumace capiendo; and the rules applying to the older writ were made applicable to the new." 1 William Holdaworth, A History of English Law 632 (7th ed. 1956).