See:
inquest,
inquiry,
interrogation,
legal proceeding,
question,
subject,
trial
QUAESTIO, Rom. civ. 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, 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.
2. The manner in which such commissions 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 auctoritate senatus asked the people in comitia, (rogabat rogatio)
to enact this decree into a law. The comitia adopted it either simply, or
with amendment, or they rejected it.
3. The increase of population and of crimes rendered this method, which
was tardy at best, onerous and even impracticable. In the year A. U. C. 604
or 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. Cic. Brut. 27. De
Off.. II., 21; In Vern. IV. 25.
4. Many such tribunals were afterwards established, such as Quaestiones
de majestate, de ambitu, de peculatu, de vi, de sodalitiis, &c. 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
officer, who was called judex quaestionis. These tribunals continued a year
only; for the meaning of the word perpetuus is (non interruptus,) not
interrupted during the term of its appointed duration.
5. 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
dissentions, 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, pro-consuls and tribunes,
in his person transferred to him as of course, all judicial powers and
authorities.