The Princeps also possessed a power of quashing indictments (_abolitio_), which does not seem to have been confined to his own jurisdiction, but to have been extended to other criminal courts as well.[1868] Its origin may be explained on two grounds. The first depends on the fact that it was possible to have any case brought to the Emperor’s court, on the request either of the prosecutor or of the accused. The Emperor might, after listening to the preliminaries, refuse to hear such a case without “remitting” it to another court,[1869] and it is very improbable that any other authority would listen for a moment to a prosecution to which the Emperor had declined to attend. The dismissal of the case by the Princeps was practically a power of abolition; but the right might have been exercised even more directly. Republican history furnishes an instance of a tribune prohibiting the president of a _quaestio_ from receiving a charge,[1870] and it is obvious that the _tribunicia potestas_ of the Princeps might have been exercised in the same way to impede the first step in the jurisdiction of every criminal court. With respect to the provinces, just as the criminal appeal finally passes to the Emperor,[1871] so the revision of the sentences of the local courts, where revision is suggested by the judge,[1872] as well as the infliction of punishments denied to the judge—such as the capital penalty on decurions or deportation on any one[1873]—centre finally in the hands of the Princeps. All right of revision and restitution is not, indeed, denied to the provincial governor,[1874] but while this was finally restricted by certain well-defined rules, the Emperor’s power of restitution appears ultimately to have been unlimited. “This power might be so employed by the Emperor as to take the form of a free pardon,[1875] but theoretically it was merely an equitable assistance. As a legally unlimited power of rescinding sentences, it approaches very nearly to a power of pardon; but it is an executive duty rather than a sovereign right, and we search in vain in the Principate for a power of pardon regarded as an admitted constitutional right of a sovereign.”[1876]