# All Writs Act **28 U.S.C. § 1651(a).** One sentence, descended from the Judiciary Act of 1789: federal courts "may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law." It is the residual authority the federal courts reach for when no specific statute supplies a remedy — and in the emergency-relief pipeline it fills one particular gap. A **stay** suspends an order that already exists. When the party seeking emergency relief *lost* below, there is no order to suspend, and what it actually wants is affirmative relief: an **injunction pending appeal**, freezing the status quo while the appeal runs. That request rests on § 1651(a) rather than on the stay statutes, and it carries a higher burden in theory because the court is being asked to act rather than to pause. In practice it goes to the same motions panel in the same week. The Act is also the authority behind the writ of mandamus, the route by which a party asks a court of appeals to order a district judge to do or undo something outside the ordinary appeal — used, among other things, to challenge venue and discovery rulings that would otherwise be unreviewable until final judgment. Its breadth is its problem: because the text names no standard, what § 1651(a) permits is whatever "necessary or appropriate in aid of jurisdiction" is taken to mean, and that has expanded and contracted with the Court's appetite for interim intervention. ## See also - [[How an Emergency Stay Application Moves Through the Courts]] — where § 1651(a) enters the pipeline, as stage 2c - [[Nken v. Holder]] — the stay standard that governs the adjacent track - [[Shadow Docket]] — the emergency docket this authority feeds - [[United States Courts of Appeals]]