The junta de guerra consisted of four ministers of the Supreme Council of War who were designated to sit with an equal number of ministers of the Council of the Indies. [468] It was, in fact, the executive committee and at the same time the special tribunal of military affairs for the Council of the Indies. It passed upon such military questions as were nominally referred to it by the president of the Council of the Indies, although these cases automatically came to this junta without the intervention of the president of the Council. It had jurisdiction over appeals in cases affecting soldiers tried in first or second instance in the colonies, over the administrative matters of armament and defense: the equipment of fleets and military operations, garrisons, military supplies, and munitions. It also tried appeals from the tribunal of the Casa de Contratación, and, in fact, it exercised general supervision over that institution in its various activities. This was the machinery which existed for the adjudication of military cases during the greater part of the history of the Islands, the magistrates of the audiencia officiating as auditores de guerra when designated by the governor. [469] The royal decree of January 30, 1855, made a radical reform in this particular, adding two new magistrates, an auditor de guerra and an auditor de marina and to some extent relieving the ministers of the audiencia. These magistrates were appointed by the Minister of War and had original and secondary jurisdiction over cases involving soldiers and sailors of the fleet. These new magistrates served as ministers of the audiencia when their special duties permitted, and they were ordered to consult with the governor from time to time in regard to matters pertaining to their respective fields. Though the audiencia was forbidden to concern itself with cases which belonged to the military jurisdiction, the regent and two magistrates of the tribunal, acting with the auditor de guerra or the auditor de marina, could resolve themselves into a special court for the trial in second instance of cases pertaining to the respective fields of the last two officials. [470]