The power of the court in the matter of claims for violation of rights of citizens has been exercised with much latitude. The most usual and proper cases arising under it are: infringements of the federal guarantee to the citizen of equality before the law, of freedom of settlement, of security against double taxation, of liberty of the press, etc. But the court has gone much beyond these; its jurisdiction has been extended to the hearing of complaints against cantonal authorities, for ordinary alleged failures of justice, such as could hardly have been contemplated by the constitution. It has even taken jurisdiction of cases where the appellant asserts a denial of his claim by a cantonal judge, grounded upon merely obstructive motives or an arbitrary application of the law. The Constitution of 1874 had as one of its chief objects the strengthening of the federal judiciary; and by statutes, enacted in pursuance of the constitutional authority given to the Federal Assembly to place other matters within the competence of the court, there have been transferred generally to it the appeals heretofore made from the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly. There is no purpose to entirely exclude the legislative branch from judicial action; for the constitution, in dealing with the Federal Tribunal, expressly provides that “administrative” cases are reserved to the Assembly; and the act of 1874 defined the jurisdiction of the Federal Council and Federal Assembly, under this reservation, to embrace disputes respecting public primary schools of the Cantons, liberty of commerce and trade, rights of established Swiss, religious disputes relating to matters of public law, questions as to the calling out of the cantonal militia, consumption taxes and import duties, exemption from military service, and the validity of cantonal elections and votes. In all these cases an appeal lies from the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly. Thus a wide field of judicial action is withheld from the sphere of the court, and upon questions which do not appear to possess any “administrative” character; producing a division of functions which is very anomalous. There has always existed in Switzerland a very strong current of opinion, that the court should be occupied exclusively with questions of public law, and should possess no jurisdiction in matters of private law. The Federal Tribunal has no officers of its own to execute its judgments; but its judgments, as well as the decrees of courts of arbitration in intercantonal conflicts, are executed by the Federal Assembly; and the Federal Assembly in turn is obliged to resort to cantonal machinery for the purpose of doing this; so that, in fact, these judgments finally are executed by the cantonal authorities.