Note 32 — Chapter V · THE SEMI-JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA.

The cédula of September 28, 1797, was a codification and a reclassification of all previous laws on the subject of this jurisdiction. The provisions of this law, briefly stated, were as follows: (1) These judges should not under any circumstances have jurisdiction over property left by will, or without will, when the heirs were present and when there was no question of their right to the property. (2) In order that these judges have power of intervention, it must be well known or appear by judicial process that either all the heirs or the greater number of them were absent. (3) They were not to have jurisdiction over property left by Indians or caciques. (4) They should not usually have authority to settle up the estates or property of native clerics, because their heirs would presumably be present. These cases were therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, unless it were shown that there were heirs in Spain. Under no circumstances should the ecclesiastical authorities have intervention in these cases. (5) When the heirs were present, the audiencia was ordered to enforce the law which forbade the intervention of both the juez de difuntos and the ordinary judge.32 In these cases the heirs were allowed to assume their property intact, without its being sold and thereby costs incurred. (6) The practice which had hitherto been followed by the juez de difuntos of diverting a fifth of the property of those who died intestate for the repose of the souls of the dead should cease from that time onward, and the proceeds of said property should be handed over without deduction to the heirs and relatives of the deceased, in accordance with the cédula of June 20, 1766.33 (7) The juez de difuntos was forbidden to intervene in the settlement of estates or property left to heirs by will.34