Remand means “to send back, to remit or to consign again.” In legal usage “remand” is used in at least two separate instances. In appellate procedure “remand” refers to sending a case back to the trial court for further action consistent with the appellate court’s decision. This occurs, for example, when an appellate court reverses a trial court’s opinion and remands the case for a new trial. In Spanish the idea of remanding a case (i.e., sending it back to the lower court) is expressed as retrotraer (or) reponer las actuaciones. Thus, an appellate order such as “We reverse and remand for new trial” may be expressed as Anulamos la sentencia recurrida, retrotrayendo (or) reponiendo las actuaciones al momento anterior al juicio oral, debiendo celebrarse un nuevo enjuiciamiento.

In a second meaning remand refers to recommitting an arrestee to custody after some type of preliminary hearing before the court. For example, at a bail hearing, if bail is denied, the judge will order that the defendant be “remanded in custody.” This is often expressed in Spanish with the peculiar expression elevar la detención a prisión provisional (literally, to convert the initial arrest to pretrial detention or custody). And, especially in British usage, pretrial detainees (persons held in pretrial detention) are known as “remand prisoners,” while time spent in pretrial custody is “time spent on remand.”