31 N.J.L. 302 | N.J. | 1865
The opinion of the court was delivered by
A certiorari was issued in this case out of the Circuit Court of the county of Morris, to remove an assessment of taxes made for school purposes, by the assessor in the township of Washington, in that county. Upon the coming on of the argument before me at the circuit, entertaining a serious doubt with respect to the jurisdiction of that court in a matter of this kind, it was directed that the case should be certified to this court for its advisory opinion.
But a single question, therefore, at the present time is presented for decision, which is, whether the Circuit Courts of this State have power to superintend and correct the pro
It is not claimed that these local tribunals are possessed of this branch of jurisdiction, by force of anything in the act by which they are constituted. Their right is placed upon higher ground, for it is insisted that the authority in question is conferred upon them by the constitution of the state.
Section I. of article VI. of the constitution, enumerates the courts in which the judicial power shall reside, and among these mentions the Circuit Courts — and in clause 2 of section V. of the same article, proceeds to define the jurisdictional power of these courts. Its language is: “ The Circuit Courts shall be held in every county of this state by one or more of the Justices of the Supreme Court, or a judge appointed for that purpose, and shall, in all cases within the county, except in those of a criminal nature, have common law jurisdiction concurrent with the Supreme Court; and any final judgment of a Circuit Court may be docketed in the Supreme Court, and shall operate as a judgment obtained' in the Supreme Court from the time of such docketing. Einal judgment in any Circuit Court may be brought by writ of error into the Supreme Court or directly into the Court of Errors and Appeals.”
The interpretation put upon Ibis clause is, that with respect to jurisdiction within the county the Supreme and Circuit Courts are co-equal. But that this construction cannot be accepted as correct, will, I think, manifestly appear if we read the clause itself in the light of cotemporaneous history, and with relation to the prior organization of the courts of this state.
At the time of the formation of the constitution, the principal courts possessing original common law jurisdiction, were the Supreme Court, the Common Pleas, and the county Circuit Courts. The first two of these were Provincial Courts, and when we would inquire into the extent and character of their judicial authority, we are obliged to revertió that distant era, for it is to the ordinance of Lord Cornbury, enacted in
Such was and continued to be the judicial regimen in this state as long as it remained in the condition of a province. Nor was any change effected in it by the Revolution and the constitution of 1776. This instrument was silent on the subject of these two courts, but shortly afterwards, on the 2d of October, in the same year, the legislature enacted “ that the several courts of law and equity of this state shall be confirmed and established, and continue to be held and established with the like powers under the present government, as they were held at and before the declaration of independence.” Pat. Laws 38. And then, to complete this brief historical
This, then, was the disposition and organization of the judicial tribunals at the time of the formation of the constitution of 1844. At that epoch, the ordinary common law original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was shared by the respective county Circuit Courts, and to a definite extent by the Courts of Common Plea's; but the appellate and extraordinary jurisdiction with which the Supreme Court, as the successor of the King’s Bench, had been originally vested, remained centered still exclusively in that tribunal — with the single anomaly, that the act constituting the Circuit Courts had conferred upon them the power to review suits originating in the Justices’ Courts, by the instrumentality of the writ of certiorari.
The question then arises, did the framers of the constitution of 1844, by the language above cited which establishes the county Circuit Courts as constitutional courts, intend to change, in any radical degree, this judicial system, or to alter, in any respect, the gradation of the several courts composing that system ?
I think it plain that such was not the design. The language in the constitution in the clause above cited is not more general or comprehensive in its import than that used «either in the ordinance of Lord Cornbury, or in the act of
Neither do I perceive anything in clause 2d of section IV. of article VI. of the constitution
The conclusion, therefore, is, that the Circuit Court had not the power to issue the writ in question, and that court should be so advised.
Rev., p. 25.