Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 157

There is another aspect of the King’s Bench during this period which deserves attention, and that is the growth of the “prerogative” writs. The history of mandamus, certiorari, prohibition and some other similar writs is still unwritten,² but it is clear that they first become important during the Tudor period, and that they were a proper development of the jurisdiction of the King’s Bench, for that court had long been close to the Council in the exercise of royal discretion in judicial matters. The writs themselves seem to have been originally mere administrative orders from superior officials to their subordinates telling them to do something, to give some information, or the like. Clearly, the King’s Bench was making a great contribution to public law when it adapted these writs to legal purposes, and assumed the task of directing them as occasion required to various departments of central and local government. When one considers the enormous activity of the King’s Council under the Tudors, it is a little surprising that the Council should have allowed the court to handle the prerogative writs, for it seems just as likely that the Council itself should have undertaken to supervise local officers by its own purely administrative machinery. If it had done so it is clear that our constitutional law would have been very different.