On the contrary, it is notorious that Church Courts have their own appellate jurisdiction, from which parties subject to them must seek redress upon all objections to evidence and forms arising in the course of a properly spiritual process. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that the very objection to evidence maintained in this suspension was competent to the suspender before the Church Courts, primary and appellate. And if these judicatories have disposed of it, can we review their judgment? It would be altogether unprecedented and unconstitutional to do so.

It is said the suspender's civil right in the benefice is affected by the proceeding complained of. But that consequence (which must follow in all trials for grave ecclesiastical delinquency) does not give the Civil Court right to assume a jurisdiction not belonging to them, but appropriately conferred privatively on Church Courts. If it did, this Court might be called to review the sentence of a Church Court in a case of heresy, which, it is obvious, would be preposterous.

The suspender has further referred to the jurisdiction of this Court in schoolmasters' cases, as exemplified in the cases of Corstorphine in 1813, and Kilberry in 1825, to establish the competency of the present appeal (Dunlop, p. 500-2). But, 1st, Questions as to the election and status of schoolmasters are not in their own nature exclusively ecclesiastical causes; and, 2d, The very ground on which the jurisdiction of this Court was sustained, both here and in the House of Lords, in the precedents referred to, was, that by the Schoolmasters' Act of 1803 (43 Geo. III., c. 43), all appeals from the Presbytery to the Superior Church Courts were excluded, and so the Civil Courts were necessarily competent to protect men in patrimonial office when the Inferior Court falls into a palpable excess of power, or deviation from form.-(See Lord Lyndhurst's speech on the Kilberry case.) The reverse is the case here; and as the suspender, a proper ecclesiastical functionary, has been deposed by the highest appellate tribunal appropriated to the cognisance of the case, the Court has no power or right of review, on any competent ground.

We

LORD IVORY.-I am of the same opinion. This Court does not sit as a court of review over the Church Courts in ecclesiastical matters. are asked to quash certain proceedings taken before the proper tribunal, the Ecclesiastical Court; and we are asked to do so upon some such ground as this, that, being the supreme judicatory of the land, we have a control over all other judicatories, and are bound to keep them within their proper forms of procedure.

Even taking the matter in that view, it is only as a supreme civil judicatory that the Court can exercise these functions; and it is one of the inconveniences, if inconvenience it be, of having two independent and

supreme judicatories in the same kingdom, that each is necessarily supreme within its own province, and is not, with reference to matters falling within that province, liable to any review whatever.

Even where the matter is properly within the province of the Civil Court, and where we are interfering with an inferior civil judicatory, whose jurisdiction in that particular matter has been declared exclusive, and not subject to review, our right to control its proceedings arises from the fact that the inferior judicatory has exceeded its powers. We interfere because the inferior court has gone beyond its province, and has, by doing so, lost the protection of the statute under which it possesses exclusive jurisdiction.

I should no more think of disturbing a decision of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court in an ecclesiastical matter, than I should think of disturbing the decisions of the Courts of Justiciary or Exchequer in a matter falling within their respective provinces. These Courts may, in our opinion, have gone wrong in rejecting evidence which we would have received; but because there happened to be a diversity of opinion as to the propriety of rejecting that evidence, could it be maintained that it was competent to seek a remedy in this Court?

Where any Court possesses an exclusive jurisdiction, supreme within its province, any question arising within that province must be exhausted, and brought to a close before that tribunal. Here the offence is ecclesiastical, the procedure is ecclesiastical, and the whole matter was competently dealt with by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court. If we are not entitled to review a sentence on its merits-even in the extreme case, that it is plainly against all principles of law and justice-still less can we interfere with any of the steps of procedure by which that sentence has been reached.

Suppose that the sentence we are called upon to review had been pronounced by the Presbytery, and that the complainer was asking for interdict against any further proceeding until these witnesses had been admitted, would not the answer have been that he should go to the tribunal appointed to dispose of such matters-that his remedy lay in the Ecclesiastical Court through all its gradations? If there be no remedy in that case, neither is there any here. If a great wrong is to be redressed, the sooner it is corrected the better. We could not do it in the case supposed, because we have no jurisdiction-still less can we do it here. It would be a most dangerous precedent to entertain this application.

There are three answers to the argument founded upon the cases decided under the Schoolmasters' Act. In the first place, in these cases the Court was dealing with matters of civil right; in the second place, the Presbytery is a statutory judicatory in such cases; and, in the third place

there is no review of the proceedings of the Presbytery unless in this Court. The last was the ratio of the decision of the House of Lords in the case of Kilberry. Lord Lyndhurst laid the greatest stress upon that consideration; and looking to the whole tenor of his judgment, I doubt exceedingly if he would have expressed the same opinion had the statute declared that there should be an appeal to the General Assembly.

I give this opinion with greater confidence, because in the memorable cases of Auchterarder and Strathbogie, in which I had the misfortune to differ from the majority of the Court, I was inclined to take the wider view of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. I am bound to hold that these cases were rightly decided; but what was the ground on which the Court interposed? It was not because they thought themselves entitled to interfere with the proper ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Church Courts, but because they held that the Ecclesiastical Courts were going out of their province, and were touching matters which were properly questions of civil right. That ground went to this, that in those questions, viewed as questions of civil right, the Church Court was no tribunal at all.

The case of Cambusnethan was decided upon the same principle. The objection there taken was, that the Church Court was not duly constituted that it was not entitled to be protected as a Church Court. But the Court thought that the Ecclesiastical Court was well constituted, and, being of that opinion, declined to interfere with its proceedings.

Here the case is a fortiori. I do not go into the particular objections argued by the complainer; I think it much more expedient that the judgment should rest upon the broad ground of competency. We cannot look into the merits of the objections. If these questions were ill decided, that is one of the inconveniences of having two separate tribunals, each independent and supreme in its own province. The law has entrusted all these questions to the Church Courts; the proper Court has heard these objections pleaded, and has pronounced judgment upon them, and I do not think it competent for us to interfere.

THE COURT refused the note.

JAMES BELL, S.S.C.-LOCKHART, MORTON, WHITEHEAD, & GREIG, W.S.-Agents.

MARCH 9, 1861.

THE REVEREND WILLIAM PATERSON and his CURATOR and OTHERS, Complainers.-A. R. Clark-A. Moncrieff.

THE PRESBYTERY of DUNBAR, Respondents.-Cook-Lee.

FIRST DIVISION.-Lord Jerviswoode. Bill-Chamber.

Church-Jurisdiction—Interdict.—A minister having been served with a libel, charging him with intoxication, lodged defences, and was thereafter cited to appear personally at a certain meeting of Presbytery, on which occasion he was represented by counsel and agent who pleaded intervening insanity, of which he offered to lead evidence at a future diet, in bar of any farther procedure. The Presbytery, in respect of his having given in defences, and thus sisted himself as a party to the cause, and also in respect of the vagueness of the crave, refused to sist proceedings. A note of suspension and interdict was presented against the Presbytery adopting farther procedure until the plea of insanity should have been considered and disposed of. The Court (aff. judgment of Lord Jerviswoode), holding that in the circumstances stated there was no ground for interference, refused the note, without answers.

On 18th June 1859 a curator bonis was appointed to the Reverend William Paterson, minister of Cockburnspath, on the ground of insanity. He was then in an asylum. On 22d March 1860 he was discharged, and thereafter attended partially to his parochial duties.

On 3d January 1861 he was served with a libel charging him with various acts of intoxication from drink, alleged to have been committed at various periods from the year 1851 to the year 1859 inclusive. To this libel he put in defences.

On 6th February 1861 he was cited to appear personally before the Presbytery, at a meeting to be held on the 25th February 1861. At that meeting Mr. Paterson did not appear, but was represented by counsel and agent. Mr. Paterson's counsel then stated for him that he "had this morning received two medical certificates, of this day's date, signed by Dr. Gairdner and Dr. Skae respectively, certifying that the Reverend Mr. Paterson is at present in a state of unsound mind; which certificates he produced, and pleaded the insanity of the Reverend Mr. Paterson, of which he offered to lead evidence at a future diet, anterior to any further procedure in the cause, in bar of any further procedure in support of the charges in the libel." But "the Presbytery, in respect of the defender having already given in answers to the libel against him at the instance of the Presbytery, and thus sisted himself a party in the case, and also in respect of the vagueness of the crave made by the defender's counsel, refuse said crave, and proceed to appoint a day for the probation of the libel."

A note of suspension and interdict was then presented in name of Mr. Paterson, his wife, and curator bonis, against the Presbytery, praying the Court to interdict them "from adopting any further procedure in

support of the charges, so long as the said Reverend William Paterson. continues in a state of unsound mind, and until it shall be ascertained that he is in a state of soundness of mind; or otherwise, to interdict, etc., the respondents from adopting any further procedure in support of the charges contained in the said libel until the plea of insanity, of which a proof was offered anterior to any further procedure in the cause, shall have been considered and disposed off."

On 2d March 1861 the Lord Ordinary pronounced the following interlocutor:-"The Lord Ordinary having considered the note of suspension, and heard counsel thereon, and on the caveat lodged for the respondents, the Presbytery of Dunbar, refuses the note, and finds the complainers liable to the respondents in the expenses of process."

The complainers reclaimed, and argued-That the right of an insane person to be protected against any criminal or quasi criminal prosecution being proceeded with during his insanity was a civil right, for the maintenance of which he was entitled to appeal to the Court of Session. Here a prima facie case of insanity had been fully made out, both by the medical certificates and by the fact that a curator bonis had been appointed by the Court of Session. It was therefore totally incompetent for the Presbytery to resolve to proceed. The complainer was at all events entitled to have it tried whether he was in such a condition as to require protection or not.

Replied The statements of the complainer, and the proceedings referred to, disclosed no appearance or averment of excess of jurisdiction on the part of the Presbytery. It belonged to the Presbytery, before whom the insanity was pleaded, to dispose of it, subject to the

1 "NOTE.-The Lord Ordinary has been pressed for immediate judgment in the present note of suspension, and he confesses he was, at first sight, somewhat startled by the statements in the note, and by the terms of the deliverance of the Presbytery of the 25th February last, which forms the more immediate subject of the present complaint. But, on consideration, he has come to the conclusion that the subjectmatter of the complaint is one with which he cannot, on any of the grounds stated, interfere, and on the merits of which he, therefore, offers no opinion. The leading facts are-That the complainer was charged, under a libel, with an offence of a character clearly cognisable by the Presbytery, as the ecclesiastical court to the jurisdiction of which the complainer Paterson was amenable. He pleaded to that libel by lodging defences. The Presbytery pronounced a certain deliverance, against which the complainer appealed to the Synod; and the Presbytery further appointed a meeting to be held on the 25th February last, for the purpose of dealing with the said complainer according to the form of process, or of resolving to proceed to the probation of the libel, according to law.

"At the meeting thus appointed, some procedure took place with reference to the reasons of appeal for the said complainer against previous findings of the Presbytery ; and the said complainer was therefore called, and did not personally appear; but appearance was made on his behalf by counsel, who stated that he had that morning received two medical certificates of that date, certifying that the said complainer was then in a state of unsound mind, and he pleaded the insanity of the said complainer, ' of which he offered to lead evidence at a future diet, anterior to any further procedure in the cause, in bar of any further procedure in support of the charges in the libel.' "The Presbytery disposed of this plea in the manner complained of, and resolved