The qualifications for the magistracy were also raised at this time, although it cannot be said that the magistrates of the audiencias were at any time incompetent or lacking in ability. The audiencias of the colonies were given equal status with those of the Peninsula, and were thus elevated in dignity and standing to the rank of tribunals of the first order. The chief defects of the colonial judicial system of the seventeenth century were thus corrected, though somewhat tardily. It is unfortunate indeed that these changes applied only to a mere skeleton of Spain’s former colonial empire.
In this chapter we have discussed the audiencia as a formal court of justice, with methods, practices, and traditions little different from those of any tribunal of justice. However, it had judicial authority more extensive and far-reaching than has yet been indicated. Among the different kinds of cases over which the audiencia had jurisdiction, perhaps none was more important, and certainly none was more exclusively peculiar to the Spanish judicial system than suits of residencia. So distinct and extraordinary was that phase of judicial activity that it merits consideration apart from a discussion of the audiencia’s functions as an ordinary court of law. In the following section we shall note its jurisdiction as an administrative court over suits wherein the government was a party and wherein the object was not only to punish offenders, but to act as a preventive of official misconduct.
[1] Recopilación, 2–15–32.
[2] Ibid., 34–36, 44.
[3] Ibid., 41.
[4] Certain phases of these questions remained within the jurisdiction of the church courts.
[5] Recopilación, 2–15–53.
[6] Parián, a market-place; the name given to the quarter set aside by the government wherein the Chinese were confined. This restriction was imposed in 1603, to give added security to the city of Manila, endangered by a Chinese uprising at that time.—See Montero y Vidal, Historia general, III, 146–148; Recopilación, 2–15–55; 5–3–24; 6–18–5.
[7] Ibid., 2–15–64; 2–16–16 to 20.