Officiality

The officiality is the Tribunal ecclesiastical charged to return justice in the name of that which exerts the judicial power in the Catholic church.

In the Latin form of officialatus at the 13th century and of officialitas at the 14th century, the officiality indicates the function of the official. Thereafter, it also indicated the Tribunal of the official.

The word officiality is rather a usual term that a scientific term. The canonical code of right uses the term of Tribunal.

Capacity of government in the Catholic church

The Church is a company equipped with all the capacities which the realization of its own end requires. The capacity of government obeys there very specific principles which have their source in the way in which it is conceived, taking into account its principles founders that it does not control since they come to him from the Christ.

This capacity of government is not parcelled out in the Église. Only one person can assume the Legislative power (to make the ecclesiastical laws), the Executive power (to emit all kinds of decrees or to concede exemptions) and the judicial Power (to judge by particular decree or judgment). It is the case, for the universal Église, of the Roman Pontife and the Collège of the bishops and, for each particular Église, of clean sound bishop.

The bishop diocesan exerts itself the legislative power. He exerts itself or by his general vicars and his episcopal vicars the executive power; by its legal vicar (official) judicial power.

Judicial power in the Catholic church

On the spiritual one

The Church always exerted the judicial spiritual matter power. Its right to evoke causes of religious order is so obvious that the Roman Emperors, last the era of persecutions, expressly recognized it.

On the matters of a temporal nature

Temporal causes of the laic ones

Right from the start, the chiefs of the Christian communities endeavoured to divert faithful secular courts. Saint Paul reproach with the Corinthiens to subject their litigations to others that Christians. The habit is very quickly established to subject the litigations of faithful, even purely temporal, to Christians then with the chiefs of the communities locales.
As from the 5th century the causes of penitent are carried in front of the judge ecclésiastique.
Les Concile S of Agde (506), of Orleans (549) and of Paris (557) recommend to the clerks to take the defense of freed in front of the public courts, and the Concile S of Mâcon (585) and of Paris (614) give to the bishops the monopoly of their causes.
Le pope Gélase Ier will ask so that the causes of the widows be taken and from the cross orphelins.
Les arose with ecclesiastical justice as well as the students ( scholares ).
Les bishops can also judge as regards will, with regard to the “pious legacies”; in the criminal field, they are qualified for the offenses of adultery, of abduction and of usure.
Les concession of the Roman Emperors explain the progression of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions, in particular Constantin which initially makes it possible faithful to resort to the arbitration of the bishops by giving civil force to the episcopal Sentence S (321 or 318), then which allots to the bishops, out of civil matter, a concurrent jurisdiction of that of the civil judges (331 or 333).
Thereafter, the privileges of Immunity granted by the kings Mérovingiens and confirmed by the Carolingian with great number of bishops and Abbot S and the fact that those are often feudal lords and have, for this reason right of justice on their grounds will contribute to the development of the courts of Église.
In addition, the faithful ones will carry more readily their litigations in front of these courts than in front of the civil courts: the procedure there is written, made on investigations, the expenses relatively low compared to the feudal jurisdictions, the system of call makes it possible to resort directly to the pope, and the right does not vary according to the habits locales.

Temporal causes of the clerks

The privilege of the for is recognized with the bishops, out of criminal matter, by the emperor Constance in 355. It will be abolished in 452 by Valentinien III, which will recognize more the criminal jurisdiction only out of spiritual matter. But the Church will get busy to maintain it.

The object of the judicial power of the Catholic church

the causes which look at the spiritual things and those which theirs are related:

that is to say formally, essentially: faith, grace;
either because they are cause of hello our the hearts: the sacramental Sacrament S, , preaching, prayers…

maybe because they are an effect or a use of a spiritual power: blessings, exemptions, offices, benefit and all acts of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction;

that is to say the temporal things, which by their nature are plain with spiritual things: legal personality of the moral persons of ecclesiastical public law or crowned places;

the violation of the ecclesiastical laws;

formerly : all causes, either contentious or criminal, relating to the people who enjoyed the privilege of the for.

formerly : certain causes, known as of for mixed, in which the civil capacity and the ecclesiastical capacity were also qualified. It was the case, for example, of the causes of the right of employers, the causes of oath, polygamy, sorcery or inceste.

Nowadays, officialities have to generally consider causes matrimonial. However, all the causes can be introduced near the officiality , within the framework of the general right of the Catholic church. “It is up to faithful legitimately to assert the rights which they enjoy in the Church and to defend them in front of the qualified ecclesiastical for, according to the right. ” The courts have thus sometimes to know dispute between two religious congregations, or laic and a congregation or a diocese. The case is rarer dispute between two laic which would not wish to carry their business in front of a civil court. The court could however be recognized qualified for such conflicts, while not having the capacity to exert a Coercition other than moral for the application of its judgment. It arrived, in a recent past, that certain judgments of ecclesiastical courts were considered by the civil courts, with the agreement of the parts, like a Conciliation.

Subjects of the judicial power of the Catholic church

With old the canonical Droit, baptized and only baptized was prone judicial power of the Church.

Since the canonical Code of right of 1983, “any person, baptized or not, can act as justice; and the part called in the cause must answer. ” Any person can thus act as justice in front of the ecclesiastical courts, for example in the lawsuits of nullity of marriage. The minors and those which are private use of the reason can be party to legal proceedings only via their parents, tutors or curators. The legal people act as justice by their legitimate representatives.

Legal organization of the Catholic church

The ecclesiastical legal organization knows jurisdictions of first, second and third authority, sometimes even beyond.

Provocatio AD Romanum Pontificem

Any faithful can call some directly with the pope to judge his cause, either like applicant, or like defendant, with any degree of jurisdiction and any moment of the lawsuit, out of contentious or penal matter.

The county court

The judge of first authority is the bishop diocesan who can exert the judicial power by itself or by others. The legal Vicar or official has the ordinary capacity to judge; it constitutes with the bishop a single court. For practical reasons, several bishops diocesans can constitute a common officiality.

the official is a priest, doctor or bachelor in canonical Droit, old of at least thirty years

For the needs for certain lawsuits which require a collegial formation, the êveque one names judges diocesans.

In the collegial jurisdictions, the president of the court must indicate one of the members of the college like rapporteur or ponent . It submits a report of the cause and writes then the Sentence S

the “instruction” :

The judge or the president of a collegial court can indicate a listener for the instruction of the cause. The listener, according to the mandate of the judge, collects the evidence and transmits to him.

the “parquet floor” :

The promoter of justice has the role of defending the public property in the penal causes. In the contentious causes, it is with the bishop whom it belongs to judge if the public property can be concerned, unless the intervention of the promoter of justice is not ordered by the law or is made necessary by the nature of the judged thing.

The defender of the bond intervenes in the causes of nullity or dissolution of marriage and in the grounds for revocation of the Ordination.

It “grafts” :

The notary ensures the regularity in the shape of the procedural documents. All the acts are held for null if they were not signed by him. All the acts which it draws up are taken officially

“auxiliaries of justice” :

The legal prosecutors have as a function to represent the parts in all the acts of the procedure. The prosecutor is single for each part and cannot be made replace, except express train agreement of the part represented.

The lawyers , obligatory in the penal causes, assist of their council and defend one or the other part, by oral examination or written. Several can be made up unit. They must be catholic.

The court of second authority

He knows with a hierarchically higher degree of the causes already solved by the county court. All the lawsuit is started again, of the facts to their legal solution, in order to check that the first delivered sentence was right.

The court of second authority judges always collégialement.

In general, the court of second authority is that of the metropolitan archbishop. If this court judged in first authority, one calls upon the court that the Archevêque indicated for the second authority, with the approval of the apostolic Siège.

Courts of the apostolic Seat

The Rote Roman

It is the ordinary court consisted the Roman Pontiff to receive the calls.

She judges in second authority the causes already judged by a county court and legitimately submitted with the Siège saint by legitimate call

She judges in third authority and beyond ( fourth authority for certain countries having a third stable authority, the such Spain and the Hungary) the businesses already treated in second authority by itself or another court.

Exceptionally, she judges in first authority certain causes which are reserved to him: contentious matter bishops, the Abbot S primacies or superiors of Congregation S, major superiors of the institutes of pontifical right, the Diocese S and certain natural persons or morals which do not have a superior in lower part of the pope. She can also judge certain causes which could entrust to him the Roman Pontiff.

Rote Roman has the role of protecting the rights of the Church, of taking care of the unit of jurisprudence and of helping the lower courts.

The Supreme court of the apostolic Signature

Jurisdiction :

This court knows:

of the complaints in nullity, the requests for handing-over in the state and other recourse against the sentences of Rote Roman;
of the recourse in the causes concerning the statute of the people whom Rote Roman refused to admit with a new examination;
of the exceptions of suspicion and other causes against the Listeners of Rote Roman because of their acts in the performance of their duties;
of the conflicts of competence because of the matter or the place.

Competence as regards administrative dispute :

To judge in first and last authority the different ones born from an act from the ecclesiastical administrative capacity;
to consider other litigations administrative which are submitted to him by the Roman Pontiff by the Dicastère S of the Roman Curie and of the conflicts of competence between these Dicastère S.

Competence of administrative police force :

To take care of the correct administration of justice and to take measures, if need be, with regard to lawyers and prosecutors;
to extend the competence of the courts;
to approve the creation of courts inter-diocesans.

Internal bonds

Official

References

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