Note 38 — Chapter III · THE JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA

It was the policy of the government to give the audiencia final jurisdiction in as many cases as possible. It was desirable to endow the colonial tribunals and authorities with sufficient power to make them worthy of respect. At the same time it was necessary to relieve the Council of the Indies of the duty of hearing the vast number of individual suits which would inevitably come to it if that tribunal were made too accessible. The Council was occupied with appeals in government and justice from all of Spain’s colonies. It has been noted that the limit of value of cases which could be appealed from the audiencia to the Council of the Indies was raised in 1620 from 200 to 6000 pesos. This would seem to indicate a growing tendency to confine suits involving individuals to the colonial tribunals, thus increasing the importance of the audiencias, and at the same time making the Council of the Indies more exclusively a tribunal of administration. This change, however, was never completely effected, despite the various expedients adopted to discourage the appeal of individual cases. Persons appealing were obliged to guarantee the expenses of suit. The great cost, the delays, and the distance altogether made appeal difficult. Appeals of longer standing than two years were not received from the Philippines in the Council of the Indies.38 An investigation of the records shows that most of the cases appealed to the Council of the Indies involved administrative law in some form, having to do either with the prosecution of officials, their removal from office, the prosecution of bondsmen, residencias, conflicts of jurisdiction, or with appeals from the decision of the audiencia in commercial and ecclesiastical matters.