Quaerens

In old practice. A plaintiff; the plaintiff. QUAERENS NON INVENIT PLEGIUM (Lat.)

In practice. The plaintiff has not found pledge. The return made by the sheriff to a writ directed to him with this clause, namely, Si A facerit B seeurem de olamore suo prosequando, when the plaintiff has neglected to find sufficient security. Pitzh. Nat. Brev. 38. QUAERERE DAT SAPERE QUAE SUNT legitima vere. To investigate Is the way to know what things are really lawful. Litt. § 443. QUAESTIO (Lat.)

In Roman law. A sort of commission (ad quaerendum) to inquire into some criminal matter given to a magistrate or citizen, who was called quaesitor or quaestor, who made report thereon to the senate or the people, as the one or the other appointed him. In progress of time he was empowered (with the assistance of a counsel) to adjudge the case, and the tribunal thus constituted was called quaestio. This special tribunal continued in use until the end of the Roman republic, although it was resorted to, during the last times of the republic, only in extraordinary cases. The manner in which they were constituted was this: If the matter to be inquired of was within the jurisdiction of the comitia, the senate, on the demand of the consul, or of a tribune, or of one of its members, declared by a decree that there was cause to prosecute a citizen. Then the consul ex cmctoritate senatus asked the people in comitia (rogahat rogatio) to enact this decree into a law. The comitia adopted it, either simply or with amendment, or they rejected it. The increase of population and of crimes rendered this method, which was tardy at best, onerous, and even impracticable. In the year 149 B. C, under the consulship of Censorinus and Manilius, the tribune Calpurnius Piso procured the passage of a law establishing a questio perpetua, to take cognizance of the crime of extortion committed by Roman magistrates against strangers de pecuniis repetundis. Cicero, Brut. 27; Cicero de Off. ii. 21; Cicero in Verr. iv. 25. Many such tribunals were afterwards established, such as qnaestiones de majestate, de ambitu, de peculatu, de vi, de sodalitiis, etc. Each was composed of a certain number of judges taken from the senators, and presided over by a praetor, although he might delegate his authority to a public ofthe meaning of the word perpetuus is (non intermptus), not interrupted during the term of its appointed duration. The establishment of these quaestiones deprived the comitia of their criminal jurisdiction, except the crime of treason. They were, in fact, the depositories of the judicial power during the sixth and seventh centuries of the Roman republic, the last of which was remarkable for civil dissensions, and replete with great public transactions. Without some knowledge of the constitution of the quaestio perpetua, it is impossible to understand the forensic speeches of Cicero, or even the political history of that age. But when Julius Caesar, as dictator, sat for the trial of Ligarius, the ancient constitution of the republic was, in fact, destroyed, and the criminal tribunals, which had existed in more or less vigor and purity until then, existed no longer but in name. Under Augustus, the concentration of the triple power of the consuls, proconsuls, and tribunes in his person transferred to him, as of course, all judicial powers and authorities.

I. [Properly guerem.] A nihil capiat, etc.. v. Ni/iil, Ml. plegium: a return of the sheriff, security, to a ■writ containing the