Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 145

There was one issue, however, upon which the Exchequer won a clear victory. The Court of King’s Bench, which from its earliest days had jurisdiction in error from the Court of Common Pleas, in 1338 claimed the right to hear errors from the Court of Exchequer. To this the barons strongly objected and showed from their records that the only jurisdiction in error above them was in the King, who might issue a special commission ad hoc. It was becoming evident, however, that this traditional method was unsatisfactory, and the commons in parliament in 1348 urged the claims of the King’s Bench, but the king would only agree to a commission of errors, composed of the Chancellor, Treasurer and two Justices.¹ Eventually, in 1357, a statute² erected a new court to hear errors in the Exchequer, which was to sit in “any council room nigh the exchequer”—hence its name, “Exchequer Chamber”. It was composed of two great officers of state, the Chancellor and the Treasurer, who alone were the judges, but they could call upon the justices of the common law courts as assessors, and could put questions to the barons of the Exchequer. Such a system was clearly unworkable, for as a matter of practical politics it was rarely possible to get two such great men together at any stated date. The commons again prayed for legislation which would give the King’s Bench the right to hear error from the Exchequer, but in vain.³ The barons stood on their statute and let their court decline rather than submit to the King’s Bench. Three hundred years later attempts were still being made to render this old statutory court more useful in an age when the Chancellor was too busy and when there was frequently no Treasurer at all.⁴