§ 8.01-650.Suspension of proceedings, where prohibition applied for.

Prohibition exists to stop an inferior tribunal or officer from acting outside its authority, and this section gives the court a way to freeze the situation while that question gets sorted out. On a petition for a writ of prohibition, the court can make an order suspending the proceedings the petition targets — and it can do this at any time, whether the formal application for the writ has already been made or not yet filed.

The suspension is not indefinite in an unbounded way; it runs until the final decision of the cause, tying its duration to the resolution of the prohibition case itself. The defendant has to be served with a copy of the suspension order, so the party whose proceedings are being paused knows exactly what has happened.

Because the underlying proceeding might otherwise race ahead and become moot before the prohibition case can be decided, the ability to freeze it immediately — even before the petition is formally filed — is what keeps the remedy meaningful.