QU2ESTIO (Lat.),. In Roman Law. A sort of commission (ad qucerendum) to inquire into some criminal matter given to a magis trate or citizen, who was called qucesitor or qucestor, 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 qucestio.
2. 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 iu 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 ea• auctoritate etnatue asked the peophl in comitis trogobot 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. 694, or 149 sm., under the consulship of Censorinus and Manilius, the tribune Calpurnius Piso procured the passage of a law establishing a queetio perpetua, to take cognizance of the crime of extortion committed by Roman magistrates against strangers de pecuniie repetundie. Cicero, Brut. 27; de Off. 21; in Verr. iv. 25.
4. Many such tribunals were afterwards esta blished, such as Qutestiones de majestate, de am bito, 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 prmtor, although he might delegate his authority to a public officer,' who was called judex quceetionie. These tribunals continued a year only; for the meaning of the word perpetuue is (non interruptue), not interrupted during the term of ite appointed duration.
5. The establishment of these queeetionee de prived the comitia of their criminal jurisdiction, except the crime of treason: they were, in faot, 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. With out some knowledge of the constitution of the Qutestio perpetua, it is impossible to understand the forensic speeches of Cicero, or even the political Isistory of that age. But when Julius Cmsar, as dictator, sat for the trial of Ligarius, the ancient oonstitution of the republic was, in fact, destroyed, and the eriminal tribunals, which had existed in more or less vigor and purity until then, existed no longer but in name. Under Augustus, the con centration of the triple power of the consuls, pro consuls, and tribunes in his person transferred to aim, es of course, all judicial powers and authori ties.