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MAGISTRATE (Lat. magistratus, from ma...

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 314 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MAGISTRATE (See also:Lat. magistratus, from magister, See also:master, properly a public See also:office, hence the See also:person holding such an office) , in See also:general, one vested with authority to administer the See also:law or one possessing large judicial or executive authority. In this broad sense the word is used in such phrases as " the first magistrate" of a See also:king in a See also:monarchy or " the See also:chief magistrate " of the See also:president of the See also:United States. But it is more generally applied to See also:minor or subordinate judicial See also:officers, whether unpaid, as justices of the See also:peace, or paid, as stipendiary magistrates. A stipendiary magistrate is appointed in See also:London under the See also:Metropolitan See also:Police Courts See also:Act 1839, in municipal boroughs under the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, and in particular districts under the Stipendiary Magistrates Act 1863 and See also:special acts. In London and municipal boroughs a stipendiary magistrate must be a See also:barrister of at least seven years' See also:standing, while under the Stipendiary Magistrates Act 1863 he may be of five years' standing. A stipendiary magistrate may do alone all acts authorized to be done by two justices of the peace. The See also:term magistratus in See also:ancient See also:Rome originally implied the office of magister (master) of the See also:Roman See also:people, but was subsequently applied also to the holder of the office, thus becoming identical in sense with magister, and supplanting it in reference to any See also:kind of public office. The fundamental conception of Roman magistracy is See also:tenure of the imperium, the See also:sovereignty which resides with the Roman people, but is by it conferred either upon a single ruler for See also:life, as in the later monarchy, or upon a See also:college of magistrates for a fixed term, as in the Republican See also:period. The Roman theory of magistracy underwent little See also:change when two consuls were substituted for the king; but the subdivision of magisterial See also:powers which characterized the first centuries of the See also:Republic, and resulted in the See also:establishment of twenty annually elected magistrates of the people, implied some modification of this principle of the See also:investiture of magistrates with supreme authority. For when the magistracies were multiplied a distinction was 'See also:drawn between magistrates with imperium, namely consuls, praetors and occasionally dictators, and the remaining magistrates, who, although exercising See also:independent magisterial authority and in no sense agents of the higher magistrates, were invested merely with an authority (potestas) to assist in the See also:administration of the See also:state. At the same See also:time the actual authority of every magistrate was weakened not only by his colleagues' See also:power of See also:veto, but by the power possessed by any magistrate of quashing the act of an inferior, and by the See also:tribune's right of putting his veto on the act of any magistrate except a See also:dictator; and the subdivision of authority, which placed a See also:great See also:deal of business in the hands of See also:young and inexperienced magistrates, further tended to in-crease the actual power as well as the See also:influence of the See also:senate at the expense of the magistracy. In the See also:developed Republic magistracies were-divided into two classes: (a) magistrates of the whole people (populi Romani) and (b) magistrates of the See also:plebs.

The former class is again divided into two sections: (a) See also:

curule and (3) non-curule, a distinction which rests mainly on dignity rather than on actual power, for it cuts across the See also:division of magistrates according to their tenure or non-tenure of imperium.. a. The magistrates of the people—also known as patrician magistrates, probably because the older and more important of these magistracies could originally be held only by See also:patricians (q.v.)—were: (a) Dictator, master of the See also:horse (see DICTATOR), consuls, praetors, curule, aediles and censors (curule) ; and (/3) Quaestors, and the See also:body of minor magistrates known as See also:xxvi. viri (non-curule). The dictator-See also:ship and consulship were as old as the Republic. The first See also:praetor was appointed in 366 B.C., a second was added in 242 B.C., and the number was gradually increased for provincial See also:government until See also:Sulla brought it up to eight, and under the See also:early principate it See also:grew to eighteen. Censors were first instituted in 443 B.C., and the office continued unchanged until its abolition by Sulla, after which, though restored, it rapidly See also:fell into See also:abeyance. Curule aediles were instituted at the same time as the praetorship, and continued throughout the Republic. The quaestorship was at least as old as the Republic, but the number See also:rose during the Republic from two to twenty. All these offices except the censorship continued for administrative purposes during the principate, though shorn of all important powers. b. The plebeian magistrates had their origin in the See also:secession of the plebs to See also:Mons Sacer in 494 B.C. (see See also:Roma: See also:History).

In that See also:

year tribunes of the plebs were instituted, and two aediles were given them as subordinate officials, who were afterwards known as plebeian aediles, to distinguish them from the curule magistrates of the same name. Both these offices were abolished during the decemvirate, but were restored in 449 B.C., and survived into the principate. The powers possessed by all magistrates alike were two:—that of enforcing their enactments (coercitio) by the exercise of any See also:punishment See also:short of See also:capital, and that of veto( intercessio) of any act of a colleague or minor magistrate. The right of summoning and presiding over an See also:assembly of that body of citizens with whose powers the magistrate was invested See also:lay with the higher magistrates only in each class, with the consuls and praetors, and with the tribunes of the plebs. See also:Civil See also:jurisdiction was always a magisterial See also:prerogative at Rome, and criminal jurisdiction also, except in capital cases, the decision of which was vested in the people at least as early as the first year of the Republic, was wielded by magistrates until the establishment of the various quaesliones per petuae during the last See also:century of the Republic. But in civil cases the magistrate, though controlling the trial and deciding matters of law, was quite distinct from the See also:judge or body of See also:judges who decided the question of fact; and the qucestiones per petuae, which reduced the magistrate in criminal cases to a See also:mere president of the See also:court, gave him a position inferior to that of the praetor, who tried civil cases, only in so far as the praetor controlled the trial in some degree by his See also:formula, under which the judges decided the question of fact. Tenure of magistracy was always held to depend upon See also:election by the body whose powers the magistrate wielded. Thus the magistrates of the plebs were elected by the plebeian See also:council, those of the people in the See also:Comitia (q.v.). In every See also:case the out-going magistrate, as presiding officer of the elective assembly, exercised the important right of nominating his successor for election. See A. H. J.

Greenidge, Roman Public Life, 152 seq., 363 seq. (London, 1901); T. See also:

Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, I. 11. i. (1887). (A. M.

End of Article: MAGISTRATE (Lat. magistratus, from magister, master, properly a public office, hence the person holding such an office)

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