Source: http://clsadb.com/document/97affd3c-22af-4020-9b76-8923553a2f6e
Timestamp: 2019-03-25 21:08:11
Document Index: 151902139

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3', 'art. 38', '§4', 'art. 19', 'art. 19', 'art. 111', '§ 1', 'art. 126']

Apostolic Signatura, Circular letter on the state and activities of tribunals Inter munera, 30 July 2016.
Eminent among the functions attributed to this Supreme Tribunal is the duty to ensure that justice is correctly administered in the whole Church.1
This duty is commended in the apostolic constitution promulgated by Blessed Paul VI, Regimini Ecclesiae universae, which united the solicitude for all judicial cases and tribunals solely in the Apostolic Signatura.2 To render effective its newly acquired competence, this Supreme Tribunal immediately issued its 1970 circular letter on the state and activity of ecclesiastical tribunals (AAS 63 [1971] 480-486), to which was attached a form for drawing up the annual report on the state and activity of each tribunal.
Among the fundamental criteria for the recent reform of procedural law, there stands out the time-honored principle, lately reemphasized, of the Bishop exercising his original judicial function in the particular Church. “In order that a teaching of the Second Vatican Council regarding a certain area of great importance finally be put into practice, it has been decided to declare openly that the bishop himself, in the church over which he has been appointed shepherd and head, is by that very fact the judge of those faithful entrusted to his care.”3
What is said of the judicial function is likewise to be understood of the responsibility of a Bishop to be vigilant over the correct administration of justice in his particular Church.4 Roman Pontiffs have not hesitated to call this duty to mind, repeatedly and explicitly, especially on the occasion of the annual allocutions to the Roman Rota.5
Because of the close and innate bond of communion between Bishops and the Roman Pontiff, who is the Successor of Peter, the judicial office of Bishops in their particular Churches is indissolubly bound up with the Petrine office, which in its origin is meant to strengthen and support the office of Bishops. For, as the two recent motu proprio Apostolic Letters state, Bishops, together with the Roman Pontiff, have a share in the “ecclesial duty of safeguarding the unity of the faith and teaching regarding marriage, the source and center of the Christian family.”6
It is out of this Petrine office that the Apostolic Signatura’s function to ensure the correct administration of justice in whole Church arises. From the time that this task was entrusted to it, this Supreme Tribunal has accordingly desired and continues to desire to carry it out “not with the mindset that everything should be deferred to it alone, but that it may offer fraternal help to the tribunals of Bishops scattered throughout the world and provide them with a service for the good of souls through the correct administration of justice.”7
The attentive promotion of the administration of justice requires, as is only fitting, knowledge, that is, information concerning the state and activities of tribunals, on the part of both the Bishop Moderators and the Apostolic Signatura.8
4) the norms that regulate procedural expenses, advocate fees and gratuitous legal assistance, and their observance;9
Sentences issued according to the briefer matrimonial process before the Bishop must also be reported on the attached form, since by them the Bishop himself exercises the judicial office. Indeed, the briefer matrimonial process, according to the recent reform, is inextricably linked to the tribunal, whether it be diocesan, eparchial, interdiocesan or intereparchial.10
On the basis of the reports on the state and activity of tribunals, the Apostolic Signatura is able to carry out its office with greater effectiveness, especially: granting dispensations from an academic degree in canon law in a more considered manner; making suggestions for the drawing up of more suitable norms; requesting and examining sentences and the acts of cases in order to safeguard correct jurisprudence;11 arranging meetings with Bishop Moderators, whether all together at the time of ad limina visits or individually, when this seems necessary or useful; promoting, for the sake of the faithful, cooperation among the tribunals dispersed throughout the world; offering the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia necessary or requested information on the existence, organization and actual state of tribunals.
+Frans Daneels, o.praem.
+Giuseppe Sciacca
1 Cf. can. 1445, §3 CIC; John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Pastor bonus, 28 June 1988, artt. 121 and 124, in AAS 80 (1988) 891, 892; Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Antiqua ordinatione, 21 June 2008, Lex propria Supremi Signaturae Apostolicae Tribunalis, artt. 32, 35 and Title V: De administrativa ratione procedendi, in AAS 100 (2008) 521, 522, 535-538.
2 Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Regimini Ecclesiae universae, 15 August 1967, n. 105, in AAS 59 (1967) 921. With respect to the duty of vigilance previously entrusted to the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, see, Circular Letter In Plenariis, 1 July 1932, in AAS 24 (1932) 272-274; erection of the Office of Vigilance in the same Dicastery, 24 May 1939.
3 Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, 15 August 2015, Preface, III, in AAS 107 (2015) 959-960; Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis et misericors Iesus, 15 August 2015, Preface, in AAS 107 (2015) 947.
4 Cf. Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, Circular Letter Visis actis, 24 July 1972; Instruction Dignitas connubii, 25 January 2005, art. 38, §4; Congregation for Bishops, Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops “Apostolorum Successores,” 22 February 2004, nn. 68 and 180.
5 See, for example, John Paul II, Allocution to the Roman Rota, 29 January 2005, n. 4, in AAS 97 (2005) 165.
6 Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, 15 August 2015, Preface, in AAS 107 (2015) 959; see also Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis et misericors Iesus, 15 August 2015, Preface: “the bishop himself ... who, due to his duty as pastor, has the greatest care for catholic unity with Peter in faith and discipline” (AAS 107 [2015] 948).
7 Supremum Signaturae Apostolicae Tribunal, Circular Letter Inter cetera, 28 December 1970, n. 5, in AAS 63 (1971) 482.
8 Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Plenary Session of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, 4 February 2011, in AAS 103 (2011) 116: “Among other things, as the Lex proprio points out, this entails maintaining an up-to-date body of information on the state and activity of the local tribunals by means of the annual report which each tribunal is bound to send to the Apostolic Signatura. It also involves the organization and elaboration of the data that comes from these reports; the identification of strategies for an appropriate use of human and institutional resources in the local tribunals, as well as the constant practice of communicating with the Bishop-Moderators of the diocesan and interdiocesan tribunals, who have direct responsibility, institutionally, for the administration of justice. This is a coordinated and patient task which aims above all to provide for the faithful the correct, rapid and efficient administration of justice.”
9 See cann. 1649 CIC and 1334-1336 CCEO.
10 See Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, 15 August 2015, can. 1676 and art. 19 of the Ratio procedendi, in AAS 107 (2015) 963-963, 970; Francis, Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis et misericors Iesus, 15 August 2015, can. 1362 and art. 19 of the Ratio procedendi, in AAS 107 (2015) 950, 957.
11 Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Plenary Session of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, 4 February 2011, in AAS 103 (2011) 117: “However, vigilance over the correct administration of justice would be inadequate if it did not also entail the function of safeguarding correct jurisprudence (cf. Lex proprio, art. 111, § 1). The means for knowing and for intervening, which the Lex proprio and its own institutional position provide to this Apostolic Signatura, permit it to act in a manner that, in synergy with the Tribunal of the Roman Rota (cf. Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, art. 126), proves providential for the Church. The exhortations and prescriptions which this Apostolic Signatura includes in its responses to the annual reports of the local tribunals not infrequently recommend to the respective Bishop-Moderators knowledge of and adherence to not only the directives proposed in the Pope’s annual Addresses to the Roman Rota, but also common Rotal jurisprudence regarding specific aspects that are crucial to the individual tribunals.”
Apostolic Signatura, Circular letter on the state and activities of tribunals Inter munera, 30 July 2016. Prot. no. 51712/16 VT. English accessed 30 November 2016 at: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/tribunals/apost_signat/documents/rc_trib_apsig_doc_20160730_inter-munera_en.html