JUSTICE 



3193 



JUSTINIAN I 



General. He was given a salary of $1,500 per 

 year and out of this sum was supposed to pay 

 the salary of an assistant. His duties were 

 limited to advising the President and repre- 

 senting the United States government before 

 the Supreme Court. As these duties required 

 but little of his time the Attorney-General was 

 not required to live in the capital city and was 

 permitted to continue his private practice of 

 the law. He was from the first by courtesy 

 a member of the President's Cabinet, but at 

 the same time was not at the head of an execu- 

 tive department as were the other Cabinet 

 members. 



With the development of the country and 

 the growing importance of the legal arm -of the 

 executive branch there was organized in 1870 

 the Department of Justice on a basis similar 

 to the other departments. The Attorney-Gen- 

 eral was placed at its head. The Department 

 of Justice must not be confused with the Judi- 

 cial Department; the latter refers specifically 

 to the system of courts having jurisdiction 

 over all cases in which the United States is a 

 party; naturally the Department of Justice 

 has close connection with the entire Judicial 

 Department. 



The Department of Justice is charged with 

 the general superintendency of the eighty-six 

 United States district attorneys and a like 

 number of United States marshals of all the 

 judicial districts; it examines the titles of lands 

 needed for government purposes for custom 

 houses, forts, dockyards and the like and ad- 

 ministers the national bankruptcy laws. The 

 Attorney-General either through his own office 

 or through United States district attorneys 

 conducts the prosecution of offenders against 

 the laws of the United States. He makes an an- 

 nual report to Congress of the business of his 

 department, and may make suggestions with 

 respect to new legislation needed. The head 

 of the Department of Justice and his asso- 

 ciates are not only the legal advisers of the 

 President but of all the other executive depart- 

 ments; legal opinions in writing upon questions 

 of law may be demanded by any department 

 head; these opinions are published from time 

 to time, and are regarded, next to the deci- 

 sions of the courts, as authority on the points 

 of law covered. The salary of the Attorney- 

 General is now $12,000 per year. See ATTOR- 

 NEY-GENERAL; CABINET. 



Canada. The Canadian Department of Jus- 

 tice has two representatives in the Ministry, 

 the Minister of Justice (who is also Attorney- 



General) and the Solicitor-General. Besides 

 the duties of giving legal advice to the Gov- 

 ernor-General and the government, and of 

 administering justice throughout Canada, this 

 department has the very important task of 

 examining all the laws passed in all the prov- 

 inces, so that the Governor-General may know 

 when to exercise his veto power. It also ad- 

 ministers prisons and penitentiaries and the 

 secret service. . E.D.F. 



JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, a public officer 

 of a township endowed with judicial powers 

 for the purpose of preventing breaches of the 

 peace and bringing to punishment those who 

 have violated minor laws. Under the consti- 

 tution of some states these officers are ap- 

 pointed by the executive; in others, they are 

 elected by the people. The incumbent has 

 judicial power only in certain petty civil cases. 

 After arrest, a culprit is brought before the 

 justice of the peace, and after hearing he is 

 either discharged or held to bail to answer the 

 complaint, or, for want of bail, is sent to jail. 

 In some states where there are no criminal 

 courts of record the justice of the peace acts 

 only as a committing magistrate to bind the 

 accused over to the grand jury, and he has 

 no trial jurisdiction. In many large cities po- 

 lice magistrates take the place of justices of 

 the peace. 



JUSTINIAN I, jus tin' i an, in full, FLAVIUS 

 ANICIUS JUSTINIANUS (483-565), called THE 

 GREAT, was a Roman emperor of the East, 

 whose reign was the most brilliant in the his- 

 tory of the divided empire. He was born in 

 the village of Tauresium in Illyricum. In 518 

 his uncle, a Thracian peasant, became emperor 

 under the name Justin I, and in 527 gave his 

 nephew a share in the imperial power. When 

 Justin died, a few months later, Justinian was 

 crowned sole emperor. 



He restored to the Roman Empire a part 

 of its former possessions by victories in Persia, 

 Africa and Italy, but began a labor of far 

 greater importance when he turned his atten- 

 tion to the laws, and directed ten learned men 

 to compile a new code. The result was the 

 Corpus Juris Civilis, or Body of Civil Law. 

 This and other legal works which the emperor 

 caused to be published were the greatest con- 

 tribution of the Roman intellect to the civili- 

 zation of the world. Justinian is also famed 

 as a builder, for he erected fortresses, har- 

 bors, monasteries and the celebrated Church 

 of Saint Sophia at Constantinople. To obtain 

 money for these public improvements, he bur- 



