COURTS
449
COURTS
agist rate's power was based on territory; later on
lere followed anotlior limitation based on the ini-
jrtance, or "(]iiantity ", of the case or controversy,
ence, in later llornan law the plaintiff had to
quire not only wiiat territory came under the
risdiction of liis judge, but also what "quantity",
gravity of matter [Bk. 19 sq., 1, De jurisdic^t., D. I, 1)]. In later times these principles have been tained and even partially increased and extended ' our civil codes; they serve even yet to justify any special courts, e. g. courts for aqueducts, for nunereial disputes, etc. Tliese various arrange- ents are not altogether foreign to ecclesiastical law; deed, in many cases it has adopted them outriglit. uis, it is not only by Divine disposition that the Dman pontiff is the supreme judge in the Universal lurch — as he is also its sovereign legislator — and at the bishops are the law-givers and judges in their ^pective dioceses; but it is also by ecclesiastical ling that certain cases are reserved to the Roman mtiff. These were first called by Innocent I (401- ), in liis epistle to Victricius of Rouen, causae ijnres (greater eases); other cases are reserved to the ^liops, to the exclusion of inferior magistrates and ilges; and others, finally, to the various Roman ingregations. It was Uke%\-ise by ecclesiastical law at in former times certain matters were reserved
provincial councils, particularly in the African lurch (Concil. Hipponense, 393); this custom, bow- er, was never sanctioned by a general law. Many facts go to prove that this limitation of clesiastical authority, a necessary consequence of e primacy conferred by Christ on Peter and his ccessors, was introduced in the earliest ages of e Cliurch; a brief mention of some will suffice, jout the year 96, we find the celebrated letter of e Corinthians to St. Clement of Rome, of which isebiiLS makes mention (Hist, eccl.. Ill, xv), and lich he calls " in every respect excellent and praise- >rthy". This letter disclosed to St. Clement the uses of the discords in Corinth and asked for a medy. In the second century the Montanists ought their grievances before the Roman pontiff; ceived at first, he restored them to their standing
the Church, but later condemned them. Many her similar occurrences could be enumerated; let suffice to mention the letter of Marcellus, Bishop
Ancyra, in which he clears himself before Pope ilius I (337-.'52) and makes profession of his faitli; so the letter of the Arian Bishops, Valens and rsacius, in which they retract their accusations
- ainst Athanasius and sue for pardon. In eccle-
istical law, cases affecting civil rulers or cardinals, 30 criminal cases of bishops, are still reserved
- clusively to the Roman pontiff. In the Church,
iwever, judicial authority is vested (by Divine jlit) not only in the Roman pontiff and the bishops, it in others also, though in a more or less re- ricted form. In former times, there was the pro- ncial council, with judicial authority in not a few ses, al.so the court of the arclideacon, distinct from at of the bi.shop, and with these the courts of ferior judges, whose authority was ba.sed on custom , niore generally, on privilege. In place of these .rlier judges we have now the vicars-general (q.v.), bo, however, constitute but one court with their shop and judge-delegates, representative either
bishops or, more particularly, of the sovereign mtiff.
IV. Classification or Ecclesi.vsticai. Courts. — I every society courts may be classified in two ays, according to the twoifold manner in which sticc may be administered. Thus it may happen lat in a certain .society the administration of justice
so estalilishcd that a controversy is not ended f one sentence, but several appeals may be made, he defendant, if unwilUng to abide by the decision IV.— 29
of the first tribunal, may then appeal from a lower
to a higher court, and this appeal may be renewed
as often as the law allows it; thus there may be two,
three, or even more courts wherein a case may be
tried. It may also happen that any given contro-
versy must be settled by one judicial sentence, even
though diverse tribunals exist, because the cases,
on account of their "quantity" — to use the termi-
nology of the Roman law — i. e. on account of their
varying importance, come under the cognizance of
various judges and tribunals. In this case separate
tribunals are so arranged that there exists a highest
and a lowest, between which there may be a third
or even .several other tribunals. Or again a mixed
system may prevail, in which are found both systems
of regulating the administration of justice.
In the Church it is precisely this last intennediate .system that prevails. For, as we have already seen, there are certain causw majores reserved to the judgment of the Roman pontiff exclusively; and as he has no superior there can be no higher court of appeal, nor, indeed, is it becoming that his judgment be reconsidered by any other, much less that it be revised. In these cases, therefore, there can be but one court of judgment. Nevertheless it may be well to remark here that, as the Roman pontiff does not generally judge personally, but through delegates who give sentence in his name, he usually allows a hearing of the case by different judges, if it should happen that one of the contending parties, not satisfied with the first judgment, requests this re- vision from the pontiff himself. All other ecclesi- astical cases, however, in which inferior courts give judgment admit of an appeal to higher ecclesiastical authority, and one may appeal not once only, but twice. Hence in ecclesiastical law there are, generally speaking, three courts of judgment, neither more nor less. This assertion admits of one excep- tion, viz., when there is question of the validity of a marriage, or of similarly important matters, appeal to a fourth court is then at times admitted. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, vicars- general succeeded the archdeacons, and after the Council of Trent, during the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries, the archdeacons' courts ceased to exist. Consequently the first ecclesiastical court is now regularly that of the bishop or of his viear- general. The second court is that of the metropoUtan. But if it should happen that the bishop who gave judgment in the first court is himself the metro- politan or an exempt bishop, or if the case was, in the first instance, brought before a provincial council, then the tribunal of first appeal is none other than the tribunal of second and last appeal, and this is always and for all parties the tribunal of the Roman pontiff. In this ca.se, therefore, only two apjieals are possible. This is the provision made by the common law, though sometimes an approved custom — more frequently an express privilege — provides dilferently. Thus, for instance, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire the ecclesiastical court of Prague is the court of appeal for the Archdioceses of Vienna and Salzburg; for Prague it is Olmutz; foe Olmiitz, Vienna. So, too, in Latin America, if the first two sentences do not agree, an appeal may be taken in the third in- stance to the bishop who resides nearest to the one who first gave judgment. This was decreed by Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Trans Oceanum' , 18 April, 1897. It must be borne in mind, however, that, owing to the special pre-eminence of the Roman pontiff, an appeal may always be made from the tribunal of an inferior judge to his tribunal im- mediately, thus passing over the intermediate courts, to which, according to the general rules, the appeal must otherwise be directed.
What has been said above applies to the ec- clesiastical discipline now in force. It must be
