court of delegates

Court of Delegates. Hist. Eccles. law. A court serving as the final court of appeal for admiralty and ecclesiastical matters. • The Court was established in 1534 to serve in the stead of the Papal Curia when the English Church severed its ties with the Papacy. Six delegates, appointed to hear only one case, made up the Court, usu. three persons trained in common law and three in civil law. This mixture led to confused rulings and unreliable pre-cedents that hindered the Court’s credibility and ultimately led to its dissolution. The Court was abolished in 1833 and its jurisdiction transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

— Also termed High Court of Delegates.

“The crown had an absolute discretion as to the person to be appointed. But, as the lawyers of Doctors’ Commons were the only lawyers acquainted with canon or civil law, certain of them were usually included in the commis-sion…. It is not surprising to find that the [Court of Delegates] was unsatisfactory. It was a shifting body, so that no general rules of procedure could be established. It did not as a rule give reasons for its decisions. Its members were only paid a guinea a day; and consequently it was usually composed of the junior civilians. On them, the judges of the common law courts, appointed as delegates, were obliged to rely for their law. In consequence of the dissatisfaction felt at its working the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1832, in a special report, recommended the transfer of its jurisdiction to the Privy Council ….” 1 William Holdsworth, A History of English Law 605 (7th ed. 1956).

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