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REQUEST, LETTERS OF
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See also:REQUEST, LETTERS OF . The legal terms " letters rogatory," or " of request " (See also:commission rogatoire), See also:express a request made by one See also:judge for the assistance of another in serving a See also:citation, taking the deposition of a See also:witness, executing a See also:judgment, or the performance of any other judicial See also:act. The later See also:law of See also:Rome imposed a See also:duty of mutual assistance on the courts of the See also:Empire, and this was extended to the courts of different states when, and so far as, See also:Roman law came to See also:rule the See also:modern See also:world. Consequently, outside ecclesiastical law (see below), the only trace of such a practice to be found in See also:England or the See also:United States, See also:independent of statutory enactment, is in the See also:admiralty See also:doctrine that the See also:sentence of a See also:foreign See also:court of admiralty may be executed on letters of request from the foreign judge or on a See also:libel by a party for its See also:execution. See the authorities collected by See also:Sir R. See also:Phillimore in The See also:City of See also:Mecca, 5 P.D. 28. The need of assistance in taking the depositions of witnesses outside their See also:jurisdiction was See also:long in being See also:felt by the See also:British and United States courts, because they issued commissions for that purpose to private persons, some-times to foreign See also:judges in their private capacities. But an increasing sensitiveness as to the rights of See also:sovereignty led to objection being taken to the execution of such commissions by persons who in that employment were See also:officers of courts foreign to the countries in which they acted, besides which those commissions could give no See also:power to compel the attendance of witnesses abroad. Consequently both in the See also:mother See also:country and in the United States acts have been passed empowering the courts to issue commissions for taking See also:evidence to colonial or foreign courts, and to execute such commissions when received by them from the courts of the colonies or of foreign countries. The British statutes are 13 Geo. III. c. 63; 1 Will. IV. C. 22; 3 & 4 Vict. C. 105, 6 & 7 Vict. C. 82, 22 Vict. C. 20 and 48 & 49 Vict. C. 74. But neither in England nor in the United States have commissions of the old See also:kind been entirely disused. In the practice under the Anglo-See also:American statutes, the leading rules are that all the acts of the judge whose services are required, and all things done before him, are governed by the law of the country in which the execution takes See also:place (See also:locus regit actum), while the admissibility of the evidence and all else which concerns the conduct of the See also:action is governed by the law of the country in which it is pending (lex fori). Details may be seen for England and the United States in the usual books of practice, and in See also:Wharton's Conflict of See also:Laws (2nd ed., 1881), §§ 722-31, and Sir R. Phillimore's See also:International Law (3rd ed., 1889), v. 4, §§ 882–85; for other countries in von See also:Bar's Private International Law, translated by See also:Guthrie (2nd ed., 1892), §§ 391, 392, 409, 410. In ecclesiastical law, letters of request are issued for the purpose of sending causes from one court to another. .Where a diocesan court within a See also:province has jurisdiction over the parties concerned, the See also:plaintiff may apply to the judge of such court for letters of request, in See also:order that the cause may be instituted either in the court of See also:arches or the See also:chancery court of See also:York, as the See also:case may be. When the judge of the diocesan court consents to sign such letters and they have been accepted by the judge of the higher court, a See also:decree issues under his See also:seal, calling upon the See also:defendant to See also:answer to the plaintiff in the suit instituted against him. Letters of request are also issued for other purposes, being sometimes sent from one judge to another to request him to examine witnesses who are out of the jurisdiction of the former, but in that of the latter; to enforce a See also:monition, &c. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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