Definition
A procedural device in old Scots law, used in the Court of Session to overcome or circumvent a delay caused by a pending suspension or advocation. Where a party sought to stall proceedings by initiating a suspension (a challenge to a lower court's decree) or an advocation (a transfer of a cause to a higher court), przevento termino provided a mechanism by which that delay could be defeated, allowing the court to proceed notwithstanding the interlocutory obstruction. The term is Latin and translates roughly as "the term being anticipated" or "forestalling the term," reflecting its function as a procedural counter-move against dilatory tactics.
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Common Confusion
Przevento termino is easily confused with the substantive grounds of a suspension or advocation itself. The device does not address the merits of either challenge — it operates solely at the level of timing and procedure, enabling the court to move forward when a party's interlocutory maneuver would otherwise freeze the proceedings.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is of almost exclusively antiquarian relevance. Researchers will encounter it only in historical materials concerning the pre-reform Court of Session — roughly prior to the Court of Session Act 1830 and subsequent procedural consolidations that rationalized Scots civil procedure. It appears in older Scots practice manuals and forms books, and its absence from modern legal dictionaries and treatises reflects the wholesale displacement of the procedural forms in which it operated.
The principal trap for researchers is terminological unfamiliarity: the Latinate form and the specifically Scots procedural context mean that general common law dictionaries will not carry it, and even Scots law sources may treat it as a curiosity rather than a working term. Bell's Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland is the most likely secondary source to illuminate its practical context. Researchers tracing the historical forms of Scots civil procedure, particularly the use of suspensions and advocations as delaying instruments, should treat przevento termino as a data point in the broader story of how the Court of Session managed abuse of interlocutory process before modern rules were introduced.
The term also illustrates the heavy reliance on Latin procedural nomenclature in historic Scots practice — a feature that distinguishes the Court of Session's form-book tradition from contemporary English chancery practice, despite superficial similarities in equitable jurisdiction.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) carries the sole historical dictionary entry, drawn from Bell, and it is brief: a form of action known in the forms of the Court of Session by which a delay to discuss a suspension or advocation was got the better of. The entry adds nothing beyond attribution to Bell, which itself signals that the term had already retreated into antiquarian status by the time Black's compiled it.
No other source in the Law Mind historical shelf carries this term. The absence of coverage in Bouvier, Burrill, or other common law dictionaries is consistent with its exclusively Scots provenance. Researchers should not expect definitional elaboration beyond Bell's own account.
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Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to historical Scots law and the pre-reform Court of Session. It has no counterpart in English, Irish, or American legal systems, and carries no operational meaning in any modern jurisdiction.
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