MODERN EUROPEAN COURTS. When the admin istration of justice was reorganized by the abso lute monarchy, the new royal courts were mod eled on the ecclesiastical courts. Professional or 'learned' judges replaced the medireval lay judges; the judge or bench of judges rendered decision both upon the law and the facts; ap peals ran from the courts of lower instance to those of higher, and finally to the king's court. The modern European courts are still, essential ly, courts of this Roman-lnqwrial-ecelesiastical type, except that the court of last instance has usually eassational jurisdiction only, not reform atory jurisdiction. The only important modi fication which has been introduced is jury trial in criminal eases. Lay assessors have been re tained or reintroduced, in some countries, in the police courts and in the commercial courts. These latter courts, with special jurisdiction over merchants and commercial cases, are sur vivals of the independent city courts of the :did dle Ages. The number of judges in a European
court it usually proportional to the amount of business with which the court has to deal. In the larger courts the judicial force is divided into sections (sometimes termed senates), and the judicial business is distributed according to its character, criminal cases going to one sec tion, commercial cases to another, etc. When a doubtful question of general importance comes before such a section, a session of the entire court may be called. In all the leading Euro pean States the independence of the judge is safeguarded by life tenure and fixed salary, and in the German Empire by the rule that a trans fer, even when it is technically a promotion, can not be made without the consent of the judge concerned.