COGNITIO

cognitio (kog-nish-ee-oh), n. [fr. Latin cognoscere “to know”] 1.Hist. The acknowledgment of a fine, or the certificate of such an acknowledgment. 2.Roman law. See COGNITIO EXTRAORDINARIA. Pl. cognitiones (kog-nish-ee-oh-neez). COGNITIO EXTRAORDINARIA cognitio      extraordinaria    (kog-nish-ee-oh ek-stror-di-nair-ee-<<schwa>>    or ek-str<<schwa>>-or-). [Latin] Roman law. A type of legal proceeding, arising at the beginning of the Empire, in which a government official controlled the conduct of a trial from beginning to end, as opposed to the earlier formulary system in which a magistrate shaped the issues and then turned the issues of fact and law over to a lay judge (a judex). — Sometimes shortened to cognitio. — Also      termed cognitio         extra     ordinem            (kog-nish-ee-oh ek-str<<            schwa>> or-d<<schwa>>-n<<schwa>>m). “The cognitio extra ordinem or cognitio extraordinaria is a collective name for all those legal procedures in which the trial consists of one stage only and in which judgment is given by the emperor or by an imperial official acting on behalf of the emperor. The disputes that were settled by means of the cognition procedure could be of very different kinds: not only could they be about matters concerning private law and criminal law, but they could also be disputes between citizens and government officials.” Olga Tellegen-Couperus, A Short History of Roman Law 90 (1993). [Blacks Law 8th]