'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎146] (155/568)

X46 ADMINISTKATION
Public Justice. —There were four kinds of Courts : Ecclesiastical
Criminal, Civil, and Commercial.
Only questions arising under the law of the Koran were cognizable
by the Ecclesiastical Courts; the judges were hazis, recognized and
paid by Government, one at the head-quarters of each vilayet,
saniaq. and kaza. Appeals lay from the lower to the higher kazis,
and from the latter to the Sheikh el-Islam at Constantinople.
Authorized and officially recognized jurisconsults, or existed
at the head-quarters of each vilayet and sanjaq, whose duties were
to resolve legal difficulties and give authoritative opinions under the
ShcvitC or sacred law, especially in questions connected with inheri
tance, marriage, and other family relations.
The Civil and Criminal Courts were divided into: Courts of the
First Instance, located at the head-quarters of each vilayet, sanjaq,
and kaza; High Courts at the head-quarters of each province; and
the Supreme Court at Constantinople, which had only appellate juris
diction. Each of these thi'ee tribunals had a civil and a criminal
side, the judges in each being distinct sets of individuals. The
language of the Courts was Turkish. The civil judges were all
Mohammedans; in Criminal Courts non-Mohammedans were included
in the Bench.
The civil code {Mujalli), which dealt with rents, sales, exchange,
contract, &c., had been drawn up by Turkish jurists. As the Turks
belong to the Hanafi sect of the Sunnis, the law adopted by the
compilers of the code was Hanafi law, and thus the Shiahs of Meso
potamia, and the members of the other three Sunni sects, had to
submit to Hanafi rulings.
Crime was divided into three categories: petty, ordinary, and
heinous. The Courts were assisted by a Public Prosecutor and his
subordinates. Courts of the First Instance disposed of petty crime
without appeal, except on a point of law. Before charges of ordinary
or heinous crime were tried, the accused went before an Examining
Magistrate, who, after investigation, either discharged the accused or
committed for trial—in the case of ordinary crime to the Court oi
First Instance, in the case of heinous offences to the High Court.
In each instance an appeal lay from the Court trying the case to the
Court immediately superior to it. No charge against a British sub
ject could proceed except in the presence of a British Consul, and no
sentence on a British subject was valid until concurred in by a
British consular representative; differences of opinion between
a Court and a Consul were referred for settlement at Constantinople
by the British Ambassador and the Turkish Minister of Justice.
Commercial Courts at the head-quarters of vilayets dealt with