Title XV: On Appeals

One appealing to the Pope judicially or extrajudicially ought to appeal in writing, express the cause, and seek appellate letters. If the appellee wishes and petitions it, the principal persons ought to proceed to the Pope personally or through procurators instructed concerning the principal cause. Nothing is changed in appeals interposed from a definitive sentence. Finally, a penalty is imposed upon either party acting to the contrary. John Andrew.

Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons. It is in our heart to diminish litigation and relieve subjects from labors. We therefore decree that if anyone determines, judicially or extrajudicially, to appeal to us from an interlocutory judgment or some grievance, he is to hasten to assign the cause of appeal in writing and seek appellate letters, which we command to be exhibited to him. In them he is to express the cause of appeal and why the appeal was not admitted, or whether perhaps deference was shown to the appeal out of reverence for the superior.

After this, a period for prosecuting the appeal having been indulged to the appellant according to the distance of places and the character of the persons and business, if the appellee wishes and petitions it, the principal persons are to proceed to the Apostolic See personally or through instructed procurators with a mandate to act and with the reasons and muniments pertaining to the cause. They are to come so prepared that, if it seems expedient to us, after the matter of appeal has been concluded or omitted by the parties’ will, proceedings may be taken in the principal business so far as can and ought to be done by law. The provisions that antiquity established for appeals interposed from definitive sentences are not changed.

But if the appellant does not observe the foregoing provisions, he will be reputed not to have appealed and will return to the examination of the prior judge, to be condemned in lawful expenses. If the appellee contemns this statute, proceedings are to be taken against him as contumacious, both in expenses and in the cause, so far as is permitted by law. For it is just that the laws rise up against one who eludes the law, the judge, and the party.

A judge who is challenged establishes for the arbiters a suitable time for concluding the cause; when it has elapsed, if the cause has not been concluded, he proceeds in the principal cause. John Andrew.

The same. After a legitimate ground of suspicion has been assigned against a judge and arbiters have been chosen by the parties according to the form of law to take cognizance of it, it often happens that, because they are unwilling to agree upon the same result and do not summon a third person with whom both or one of them is to proceed to decide the business, as they are bound to do, the judge pronounces a sentence of excommunication against them. They contemn it for too long, sometimes because of hatred and sometimes because of favor toward the parties, and therefore, the cause itself being prolonged beyond what is due, the principal business is not taken into cognizance. Wishing, therefore, to apply a necessary medicine to a disease of this kind, we decree that a suitable term is to be appointed for the arbiters by the judge, within which they are to agree upon the same result or concordantly summon a third person with whom both or one of them is to take care to terminate the business concerning that suspicion. Otherwise, the judge is thereafter not to omit proceeding in the principal business.

An appeal is made from a bishop’s official not to the bishop but to the archbishop. — § 1. An appeal is made from a bishop’s subject to the bishop, not to the archbishop, unless custom provides otherwise. This is what it says. — § 2. An archbishop ought not to commit a cause of appeal interposed from a bishop, or cite the parties, unless a probable cause is expressed in the appeal. — § 3. If it is denied that the business was devolved by appeal, the archbishop will not prohibit the judge of the principal cause from proceeding unless the devolution has first been established. This is what it says. — § 4. If it is said that an appeal was made for an unjust cause, the archbishop cannot prohibit proceedings unless, having first received the appeal as probable, he begins to take cognizance of the truth of the cause. This is what it says. — § 5. Although it is said that an appeal was made from a definitive sentence in a case prohibited by law, once the archbishop has begun to take cognizance of this he can prohibit the sentence from being committed to execution. This is what it says. — § 6. An archbishop cannot exercise jurisdiction over a third person who alters something in a cause devolved upon him by appeal after his prohibition. This is what it says. — § 7. An archbishop cannot exempt an appellant from the bishop’s jurisdiction in other causes. — § 8. By law, an appeal ought to be made to the archbishop from bishops in causes in which they have temporal jurisdiction, unless a special law introduces something else. This is what it says. — § 9. An archbishop cannot revoke ecclesiastical censure pronounced by a bishop against an appellant unless the parties have been summoned and the cause lawfully taken into cognizance. This is what it says. — § 10. Once the archbishop has pronounced that an appeal before sentence was badly made, he ought immediately to remit the cause to the suffragan. This is what it says.

The same. The Roman Church—(And below:) Since the suffragans of the Church of Reims and their officials, who generally take cognizance of causes pertaining to their forum by supplying their functions, are to be judged one and the same consistory or audience, an appeal is to be made by law from those officials not to the said suffragans—lest an appeal appear to be interposed from themselves to themselves—but to the curia of Reims.

§ 1. From archdeacons and other inferior prelates subject to the same suffragans, and from their officials, an appeal ought to be made to the suffragans themselves and not, with the said suffragans omitted, to the same curia, unless by custom something else belongs to the Church of Reims in this regard.

§ 2. When an appeal has been made to the aforesaid curia from the audience of those suffragans or their officials, the Archbishop of Reims for the time being, or his official, is by no means to cite the parties in the cause of an appeal interposed before a definitive sentence, nor commit it to others, unless a probable or legitimate cause of that appeal is expressed.

§ 3. But if, after the parties have been summoned, it is alleged either that no appeal at all was made, or that it was not made within ten days after the interlocutory or definitive sentence, or something else similar, and that the business was thus not devolved by appeal upon that archbishop or his official, they are not to presume to prohibit proceedings in that cause, or proceedings toward execution of the sentence, unless it has first been established for them that the cause itself was wholly carried to them.

§ 4. But if it is objected that an appeal before sentence was interposed from an unjust or insufficiently legitimate cause and that an appeal of this kind is therefore not to be admitted, the aforesaid archbishop or his official cannot prohibit proceedings in the cause unless, after first receiving the appeal as one issued from a probable cause, they begin to take cognizance whether a cause of this kind is true.

§ 5. But if it is said that an appeal after sentence was made in cases prohibited by law—for example, from a sentence promulgated concerning a manifest and notorious crime, or one that a person confessed in law, or similar cases—they can prohibit the sentence from being committed to execution after they have begun to take cognizance whether the appeal interposed from it is to be received or not.

§ 6. Nor can he claim any jurisdiction on such an occasion over another person who, concerning the thing about which controversy is conducted between the appellant and appellee, attempts something after their prohibition.

§ 7. Since one who utters the voice of appeal to the curia of Reims concerning some cause is nevertheless subject to the jurisdiction of his ordinary in other causes, the Archbishop of Reims or his official is by no means to impede that jurisdiction in other matters so as wholly to exempt such an appellant from the power of the same ordinary.

§ 8. An appeal ought to be made to them from the bishops of the aforesaid province concerning causes in which they exercise temporal jurisdiction, unless perhaps by custom, privilege, or another special law an appeal is to be made to someone else.

§ 9. Nor are they in any way to revoke, or denounce as null, sentences of interdict, suspension, or excommunication promulgated against the appellant by the person from whom the appeal is alleged to have been made, unless the parties have been summoned and the appeal lawfully taken into cognizance.

§ 10. When an appeal has been made to the Archbishop of Reims before sentence from the audience of his suffragan concerning some cause, the same archbishop, after taking cognizance of the appeal and establishing that it was insufficiently reasonable, is not to postpone remitting the cause to that suffragan.

If a judge who has been required does not deliver appellate letters and afterward proceeds in the cause, the proceeding is not valid unless the appeal had been renounced. John Andrew.

The same. So that instruction concerning an appeal and its cause may more easily be had in the proceeding, we strictly command that the person from whom the appeal is made, when required, give the appellant appellate letters according to the tenor of our constitution issued concerning this. But if he does not exhibit them and thereafter perhaps proceeds in the cause, his proceeding is invalid and void unless the appeal has been renounced.

The appellate judge ought to remit an appellant who appeals unjustly before sentence to the judge of the principal cause and condemn him in expenses; this applies if the principal judge had not deferred to the appeal. But if he deferred to it, remittal will not be made of necessity. In appeals interposed from a definitive sentence, the ancient laws are to be observed. John Andrew.

Clement IV. Since justice neither defers to frivolous appeals nor ought a judge to defer to them, if a lower judge does not admit an insufficiently legitimate appeal but the appellant nevertheless prosecutes it, the superior, taking cognizance of it, is without difficulty to remit the cause to the prior judge according to the canonical sanctions, making a condemnation in expenses on the same day. But if the judge admits that appeal, although both the appeal and the deference of the judge himself can be rejected by the superior, nevertheless, because the judge himself, so far as lay in him, divested himself of that jurisdiction by deferring to the appeal insufficiently justly, decision of the whole cause is transferred into the superior’s power, and the cause is not of necessity to be remitted to the former judge. The provisions established concerning appeals interposed after sentence remain saved.

If an appellant does not insistently seek appellate letters within thirty days, he renounces the appeal. If the judge, duly required, does not deliver them but afterward proceeds, his proceeding is not valid. John Andrew.

Boniface VIII. Appellate letters ought to be insistently sought by one who appeals within thirty days, and exhibited to him by the judge within the said time. Otherwise, if the appellant omits to seek them within that time, he is presumed to renounce his appeal, even if he goes or sends someone to prosecute an appeal of this kind. The provision that our predecessor Pope Innocent IV of happy memory decreed was to be established—that if the person from whom the appeal is made does not give appellate letters to the appellant when required, and thereafter perhaps proceeds in the cause, his proceeding is invalid unless the appeal has been renounced—applies only when the judge, required concerning this with due insistence at a suitable place and time, expressly denies them or maliciously or negligently omits to deliver them to him within the aforesaid time.

Innovations made by a judge after a definitive sentence from which an appeal was made are immediately revoked by the appellate judge, even if they were made before the appeal. But things attempted after an appeal before a definitive sentence are not revoked unless the truth of the appeal has first been established, unless they were attempted after a prohibition duly made. John Andrew.

The same. Not only ought innovations made after an appeal interposed from a definitive sentence always to be wholly revoked before all else by the appellate judge—except in cases in which the laws prohibit an appeal after sentence—but also all things that it happens are altered in the intervening time between the sentence and the appeal that is afterward interposed from it within ten days, just as if they had been altered after that appeal.

But things altered after an appeal interposed before a definitive sentence ought not to be revoked until it is established that the cause of appeal is true, unless the appellate judge, after it has been established for him that the business was devolved upon him through an appeal issued from a probable cause, canonically prohibits the judge from whom the appeal was made from proceeding. For then, whatever was altered after such a prohibition is, even if the same cause is not true, to be reduced before all else to its former state by the same appellate judge.

One who appeals extrajudicially ought to appeal within ten days from when he learned of the grievance; afterward he will be heard through the remedy of the common law, but not through the remedy of appeal. John Andrew.

The same. Wishing by the present constitution to impose an end upon ancient dispute, we decree that from elections, postulations, provisions, and any extrajudicial acts in which an appeal can be interposed, anyone who, reputing himself aggrieved by them, desires the grievance inflicted to be revoked through the benefit of appeal is, if he wills, to appeal within ten days after he learns of it. After ten days, however, access to appeal is not to lie open to him. But if through due contradiction or other remedies of law he petitions that the grievance be revoked, the lapse of ten days is not to stand in his way, provided that in the meantime he did not consent to those acts.

An appeal tendered in writing is valid although it is not read before the judge. Zenzel says this.

The same. An appeal that you allege you tendered in writing to the judge from whom you wished to appeal cannot reasonably be attacked because it was not read before him.

The judge from whom an appeal is made cannot compel one appealing from a grievance to prove its truth, although he can cite him to hear its revocation; once it has been revoked, he will be able to proceed in the cause notwithstanding the appellant’s contumacy, as though he had never appealed. This is what it says. Zenz.

The same. If the judge from whom you appeal because of a grievance that you allege was inflicted upon you appoints for you a term to prove that you were aggrieved and to hear the revocation of the same grievance if you prove it, you are bound neither to prove this before him—since he has the duty to see it through himself—nor to appear as before a judge, since his jurisdiction has been suspended through the appeal, except solely to hear that revocation if he determines that it is to be made. Otherwise, if you do not appear and he effectually revokes the grievance at the term, he will thereafter be able freely to proceed in the cause as though the appeal had not been interposed.

An appeal is made from a chapter’s collation to the bishop if he took part as a canon; it is otherwise if he took part as a prelate. This is what it says. Dominicus.

The same. From a collation of a benefice that you allege was made to your prejudice jointly by the bishop and chapter, you ought to have appealed not to the bishop himself, if he took part in it as prelate, but to a superior. Otherwise, if he had taken part in it as a canon, you could lawfully have appealed to him.

Through an appeal interposed from a definitive sentence, an interlocutory judgment prejudicing the principal business can be revoked; otherwise it cannot. John Andrew.

The same. Although no appeal was made from an interlocutory judgment through which an exception of pact or prescription, or another exception prejudicing the principal business or rendering the judicial proceeding null, was rejected, nevertheless, if it happens that an appeal is made from the definitive sentence that is afterward promulgated, even beyond ten days, the grievance inflicted through that interlocutory judgment can lawfully be corrected in the appeal cause by the appellate judge. But where an interlocutory judgment is pronounced concerning something that does not prepare prejudice to the principal business or render the judicial proceeding null, unless an appeal was made from that interlocutory judgment, the grievance inflicted can by no means be revoked through an appeal afterward interposed from the definitive sentence.