Middle jurisdiction

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The middle jurisdiction is a term from medieval and early modern law and includes jurisdiction over certain administrative offenses or criminal offenses and / or civil law disputes.

Demarcation

In contrast to the high jurisdiction ( blood jurisdiction ) and the lower jurisdiction (disputes that usually concerned land rights such as fiefs or cultivation as well as inheritance law and minor misconduct against legal peace), in the context of the intermediate jurisdiction with regard to criminal jurisdiction, as a rule, wrongdoings, the punishment lesser than mutilation and the death penalty (blood judiciary) were dealt with.

The middle jurisdiction has only gradually developed in the context of the delimitation of rulers (rulership formation).

A temporal, spatial and factual delimitation to the lower jurisdiction is therefore difficult, since this was regulated differently depending on the region and an allocation between middle or lower jurisdiction can often only be explained on the basis of historical development. Often a dividing line was not drawn strictly between lower and higher jurisdiction or the competencies in this regard changed over time.

A limit was sought in part according to the value of the subject of dispute or the type of crime (for example blood-brawling, low-value thefts, major breaches of the peace). Due to the frequency of legal cases in the area of ​​the intermediate jurisdiction and the related financial lucrativeness, attempts were made, among other reasons, to extend the jurisdiction of the high courts to cases of the intermediate jurisdiction.

tasks

The competence of the intermediate judiciary partially included both civil and criminal jurisdiction and appellation against decisions by lower courts. However, the development was different and inconsistent in the German-speaking regions. In particular with regard to the possibilities of appeal, there were considerable differences and, over time, different solutions in every jurisdiction.

In addition to the intermediate jurisdiction for the "normal" subjects, there were still special courts, for example for the nobility , the clergy or in matters of military law and sometimes for universities ( academic jurisdiction ).

Court name

The courts appointed to exercise intermediate jurisdiction were named differently. Partly as regional court , court court , provincial court, knight's court, Landvogtey, Landding, Landstuhl, Landrecht , in Austria the Landschranne etc. However, the name of the court cannot be used to determine its area of ​​responsibility, as the same name in the German-speaking countries sometimes also for Courts of lower jurisdiction and blood jurisdiction was used.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ According to Johann Christoph Adelung's Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect , Vienna 1811 - keyword: Regional Court .