on of the errors and vagaries of
subordinate tribunals; and (3) of securing so far as possible uniformity
in the judicial interpretation and administration of the law, by
creating a supreme appellate tribunal to whose decisions all other
tribunals are bound to conform. It would be undesirable to detail at
length the history of appellate jurisdiction in England, involving as it
would the discussion in great detail of the history and procedure of
English law, and it may suffice to indicate the system of appeals as at
present organized, beginning with the lowest courts.

_Justices of the Peace._--The decisions of justices of the peace sitting
as courts of summary jurisdiction are subject to review on questions of
law only by the High Court of Justice. This review is in a sense
consultative, because it is usually effected by means of a case
voluntarily stated by the justices at the request of the aggrieved
party, in which are set forth the facts as determined by the justices,
the questions of law raised and their decision thereon, as to the
correctness whereof the opinion of the High Court is invited. The
procedure is equally open in criminal and civil matters brought before
the justices. But when the justices decline to state a case for the
opinion of the High Court, the latter, if review seems desirable, may
order the justices to state a case. And the High Court has also power to
control the action of justices by prohibiting them from acting in a case
beyond their jurisdiction, ordering them to exercise jurisdiction where
they have improperly declined (_mandamus_), or bringing up for review
and quashing orders or convictions which they have made in excess of
jurisdiction, or in cases in which interested or biassed justices have
adjudicated (_certiorari_). None of these regulative processes exactly
corresponds to what is popularly known as an appeal, but in effect if
not in form an appeal is thus given.

There is also another form of appeal, in the fullest sense of the term,
from the decision of justices sitting as a court of summary jurisdiction
to the justices of the same county sitting in general or quarter
sessions, or in the case of a borough to the recorder as judge of the
borough court of quarter sessions. This form of appeal is in every case
the creation of statute: and even in text-books it is hardly possible to
find a really complete list of the matters in respect of which such
appeal lies. But as regards crimin