The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies: As illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583-1800)Cunningham, Charles Henry
History
The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies: As illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583-1800)
Cunningham, Charles Henry
Philippines -- History -- 1521-1812; Spain -- Colonies -- Administration
The causes of the breakdown of the first audiencia may be found
in the circumstances of the time, the personnel of the tribunal,
the indefiniteness of the laws which created it, the novelty of the
situation to magistrates and officials and their failure to adapt
themselves to their duties and to one another. As an institution
of reform the audiencia did not have time to adjust itself to a
permanent status.
The king, in compliance with the demands of the various organizations
and individuals of Manila as communicated by their respective envoys,
abolished the Audiencia of Manila by royal cédula on August 9, 1589,
ordering the Viceroy of New Spain to take the residencias of all
officials who had been identified with the Manila government. To
carry out these orders Licentiate Herver del Coral was sent from
Mexico to Manila, where he arrived in May, 1590, in company with
the new governor, Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas. [93] Santiago de Vera,
the ex-governor, was promoted to a magistracy in the Audiencia of
Mexico; the oidor, Pedro de Rojas, was made teniente and asesor
to the governor, while the former oidor, Rivera, and Fiscal Ayala,
were left without office. [94]
The regular organization for the administration of justice in the
provinces was left precisely as it had been when the tribunal was in
existence. The alcaldes mayores and the corregidores still functioned
as judges of first instance and as governors of the provinces. The
alcaldes ordinarios remained the judges of first instance in the
city of Manila. These judges tried cases with appeal to the governor,
and the judgment of the latter was final in cases involving a value
of a thousand ducats or less. Cases of a higher category might be
appealed from the decision of the governor to the Audiencia of Mexico,
and thence, if again appealed, to the Council of the Indies.
The audiencia of three magistrates and a fiscal was replaced by a
governor, who was both captain-general and sole judge. He was assisted
in the latter capacity, as above noted, by a teniente and asesor,
a lawyer, who advised him in legal affairs and prepared his judicial
decisions for him. This reform was made on the representation of Fray
Sánchez, that Manila had no need of a judicial system more pretentious
than that of any Spanish provincial town. That city was accordingly
reduced to the rank of a city or district, with dependence in judicial
and administrative matters on New Spain, in whose audiencia appeals
from the governor of the Philippines were heard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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