Bench

A tribunal for the administration of justice. The judges taken collectively, as distinguished from counsellors and advocates, who are called the bar. The term, indicating originally the seat of the judges, came to denote the body of judges taken collectively, and also the tribunal itself. The jus band, says Spelmau, properly belongs to the king's judges, who administer justice in the last resort. The judges of the inferior courts, as of the barons, are deemed to judge piano pede, and are such as are called in the civil law pcdanei judices, or by the Greeks xa^ai Sinaaral, tbat is humi judicantes. The Greeks called the seats of their higher judges (Ififiara, and of their inferior judges fjatipa. The Romans used the word sella; and tribunalia to designate the seats of their higher judges, and subsellia to designate those of the lower. See Spelman, Gloss. Bancus; 1 Reeve, Eng. Law 40, 4th ed. "The court of common pleas in England was formerly called Bancus, the Bench, as distinguished from Bancus Regis, the King's Bench. It was also called Communis Bancus, the Common Bench; and this title is still retained by the reporters of the decisions in the court of Common Pleas. Mention is made in the Magna Charta 'de justiciariis nostris de Banco,' which all men know to be the justices of the court of Common Pleas, commonly called the Common Bench, or the Bench." Viner, Abr. Courts (n. 2).