I have to follow terrible court order (9)
I believe the answer is:
directive
'order' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'i have to follow terrible court' is the wordplay.
'i have' becomes 'ive'.
'to follow' says to put letters next to each other.
'terrible' becomes 'dire' ('dire' can be a synonym of 'terrible').
'court' becomes 'ct'.
'dire'+'ct'='direct'
'ive' put after 'direct' is 'DIRECTIVE'.
(Other definitions for directive that I've seen before include "order" , "Official instruction" , "command" .)