Moratorium (law)

A moratorium is when a grown-up in charge decides to make a rule that nobody can do something for a period of time. Imagine if your teacher says that during recess, you can't play soccer for one week. That is like a moratorium. A moratorium in law is when the government, a judge or a company stops a particular activity or event for a little while. For example, if a judge thinks that a new law needs to be checked to make sure it's fair, he can say that nobody can follow that law until they review it. Similarly, the government can say that a company can't do any more work on a project until they are sure it's not harmful to people or the environment. This gives them time to figure out if it's safe or not. The moratorium usually has a start date and end date, and when it's over, everyone can go back to doing what they were doing before.