CHAPTER VI. COURTS OF REVIEW. SEC. I.-MALADMINISTRATION. 1. THE right is constitutionally secured to members and ministers of this Church, of having the adverse sentence of a primary court reviewed by a higher one, and thus of obtaining relief by the correction of errors in the officers or triers of the inferior tribunal. Courts of appeal are arranged accordingly. 2. Maladministration may be found against a ministerial or judicial officer, with or without blame; it may or it may not infer moral obliquity. In the first case, it is sufficient to correct the administration; in the second, not only the administration must be corrected, but the administrator ought to be censured. Male, (Latin,) meaning ill, or bad. Maladministration-bad management of business by an officer; ill conduct in performing public duties prescribed by law; not done according to rule. 3. A traveling preacher is amenable to the Annual Conference on a complaint for maladministration. When he has been judged guilty, reproof or suspension is the highest censure which can be inflicted. 4. When it is decided that a pastor has been guilty of maladministration in receiving or expelling a member contrary to rule, this decision has the effect of restoring the member so expelled, but not of excluding the member so received. Those who receive, in good faith, the pastors sent them, and are governed by their directions, must not suffer for it. Ecclesiastical rights acquired by the official act of accredited agents cannot be repudiated to the injury of any, while redress must be given to any who have been injured by them. 5. The finding of maladministration against a preacher in charge, in the process of expelling a member, does not have the effect of restoring his character, but simply his membership. He is placed in the position occupied before his trial-that is, he is an accused member under charges, and must be dealt with as such. 6. The question, "What is the law in the case?" which arises in the inquiry whether there has been maladministration or not, must be decided by the President of the Annual ConferBut it is for the Conference to apply the ence. law to the case in hand. Has the preacher acted contrary to the law, or without law? Was his maladministration excusable, or was it due to culpable ignorance, to carelessness, to prejudice, or passion, or a purpose to gratify personal animosity? It is for the Conference to settle these questions, and also what censure, if any, is to be awarded. 7. When an Annual Conference decides that a Presiding Elder has been guilty of maladministration in "all and singular," the proceedings of a Quarterly Conference, by which an ordained local preacher was deprived of his credentials, the effect of such decision operates a nullity on the trial, and leaves the appellant, in regard to membership and office, where he was before the trial begun.* SEC. II.-APPEALS. 1. An appeal is a removal of a cause, already decided, from an inferior to a superior court. It is allowable only where judgment has been rendered and submitted to, and to the party against whom it has been rendered. As it is a constitutional provision, much margin should be *College of Bishops, 1861. adjudicating body, when a case is remanded for a new trial, to reëxpel a member on a verdict of guilt, rendered at a previous trial, without a new hearing of testimony." 8. The court appealed to, and not the court appealed from, judges whether the party has a right to appeal. A person who was tried and censured in his absence, and regarded as evading a trial, may be able to show to the appellate court that his absence from the trial was not designed, not a fault on his part, not contumacious. If a majority are convinced that he did not designedly evade a trial, the appeal should be entertained. 9. The appeal does not suspend the operation of the decision or sentence appealed from, but only its finality. An expelled member, says Bishop Morris, though he takes an appeal, cannot enjoy any privileges of Society, until the sentence is reversed by the Quarterly Conference. And if the quarterly report is made before the appeal has issued, the preacher in charge must include him among those expelled from the Church, with a notice of his pending appeal; and if the decision is reversed, the preacher in charge should state the fact of his restoration by the Quarterly Conference. 10. Appeals may be from legal decisions of presiding officers, or from sentences of Churchcourts; they may be taken on questions of law or of fact. 11. Appeals of the first kind are from the preacher in charge to the Presiding Elder, from the Presiding Elder to the Bishop, from the Bishop to the College of Bishops; of the second kind, from the select committee or Society to the Quarterly Conference, from the Quarterly Conference to the Annual Conference, from the Annual Conference to the General Conference. 12. Mode of conducting an appeal before a Quarterly Conference: (1) A statement or communication from the appellant, setting forth his appeal, and the grounds of it. (2) The charges and specifications, and the judgment of the court below, are heard. (3) Deciding whether or not to admit the appeal. (4) If admitted, reading the records of the trial. (5) The appellant, by himself or counsel, is heard. (6) The court below, by its representative, replies. (7) The appellant closes. (8) The appellant retires, and the Conference decides the case. 13. The appeal must be tried on the minutes and records of the lower court; no other evidence is admissible. If the appellant alleges |