The scope of the exercise of this power was conditioned by circumstances; most frequently the prohibition was directed against certain specific acts. The intercourse of a lower magistrate with the people, which had not the approval of his superior, might be hampered by this means; thus the higher magistrate had the right _avocare contionem_ from the lower.[741] The tribune possessed it in a supreme degree, and it was a grave infringement of his majesty when any other official called away a portion of the people whom he was addressing.[742] The consul might hinder the praetor from introducing a _rogatio_,[743] and to guard against the possibility of the _obnuntiatio_ when he himself was holding the _comitia_ consistently forbade him to consult the heavens on that day.[744] Other more glaring misuses of magisterial power were hindered in this way, such as the attempt to triumph without the consent of Senate or people,[745] or the effort to prolong a magistracy beyond its appointed tenure.[746] But the prohibition might, under special circumstances, be far more sweeping than this; it might extend to the suspension of all the functions of a magistrate, or even to the enforced cessation of almost all the active life of the state. A higher magistrate, although he could not take away office from an inferior or even force him to abdicate, could visit a misuse of his functions by prohibiting all further action on his part. This power, practically amounting to a suspension from office, is found twice in our annals directed by the consul against the praetor—in one case for a breach of respect, in the other for revolutionary proceedings.[747] Nor was the power confined to Rome. The provincial governor had a similar capacity for dismissing officials, who disgraced his administration, from the country under his control.[748] A far more comprehensive act was the edict of a magistrate with _major potestas_ that all lower magistrates should suspend the exercise of their functions. Such a cessation of public business was known as _justitium_, a name derived from the suspension of that department of business which was the most constant sign of the active life of the state, the courts of law (_juris statio_). The decree was usually pronounced by the highest magistrate present in Rome who possessed the _imperium_, by the dictator,[749] or by the consuls[750]; and, as a rule, the _justitium_ was proposed on a vote of the Senate[751] and to meet certain definite contingencies. The most usual circumstances which called for it were a sudden war, or a rising within the confines of Italy and its neighbourhood (_tumultus_),[752] or a public mourning following on a national disaster, or the death of a distinguished man.[753] The cessation of the _justitium_ (_justitium remittere_[754]) was pronounced by a decree of the magistrate who had enjoined it.