scire facias

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A writ requiring the named party to appear in court and show why a judgment should not be executed or some other action taken based on a matter of judicial or public record.
• noun A judicial proceeding under this writ.

from The Century Dictionary.

• In law, a writ to enforce the execution of judgments, patents, or matters of record, or to vacate, quash, or annul them. It is often abbreviated to sci. fa.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• (Law) A judicial writ, founded upon some record, and requiring the party proceeded against to show cause why the party bringing it should not have advantage of such record, or (as in the case of scire facias to repeal letters patent) why the record should not be annulled or vacated.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun law A judicial writ directing the sheriff to make the record known to a specified party, and requiring that defendant to show cause why the party bringing the writ should not be able to cite that record in his own interest, or why, in the case of letters patent and grants, the patent or grant should not be annulled and vacated.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a judicial writ based on some record and requiring the party against whom it is brought to show cause why the record should not be enforced or annulled