Exchequer of Pleas - Jurisdiction and Relationship With Other Courts

Jurisdiction and Relationship With Other Courts

The Exchequer's position as a court originally came from an informal process of argument between the king and his debtors as to how much money was owed; by the 13th century, this had evolved into formal court proceedings. Therefore its initial jurisdiction, as defined by the Statute of Rhuddlan, was as a court where only the king could bring cases. The Exchequer became the first "tax court", where the king was the plaintiff and the debtor the defendant. The king was represented by the Attorney General, allowing him to avoid much of the legal costs associated with a court case. The "next logical step" was to allow debtors to collect on their own debts in the Exchequer, so that they could better pay the king; this was done through the Writ of Quominus. The Exchequer also had sole jurisdiction to try cases against their own officials and other figures engaged in collecting the royal revenue. The court was also used to prosecute clerics who, while innocent, had come close to committing an infraction; as the plaintiff was represented by the Attorney General, the costs were reduced, and as the Attorney General had no incentive to compromise it was more threatening to the cleric. In 1649 the Exchequer formally extended its common law and equity jurisdiction, becoming a fully fledged court of law able to hear any civil case.

The main focus of the Exchequer was the collection of royal revenue as part of the greater Exchequer, which was officially undertaken by the Lord High Treasurer. The Exchequer was unique in having jurisdiction in matters of both equity and the common law, the latter initially curtailed after the Magna Carta and reserved for the Court of King's Bench and Court of Common Pleas, although it later grew back. This process of common law and equity was reversed; during the 16th century the Exchequer was solely a common law body, with the equity jurisdiction only again becoming relevant near the end of the Tudor period. W. H. Bryson argues that this happened during the reign of Edward I. By 1590 the Exchequer's jurisdiction over equity cases was confirmed, and it was handling a significant number a year, including disputes over trusts, mortgages, tithes and copyholds; since taxation was ever-present, it was not difficult to show that the dispute prevented the payment of a debt to the monarch, allowing the Writ of Quominus.

The Exchequer stood on an equal footing with the other Westminster courts (the Court of Common Pleas, Court of King's Bench and Court of Chancery), with cases transferred easily from one to another, although there were problems in the case of the Court of King's Bench. The traditional method for moving a case was the writ of supersedeas, but the King's Bench represented the monarch, who could not have writs placed against him. Instead, a clerk would bring the Red Book of the Exchequer to the King's Bench and assert that the case's claimant was an officer of the Exchequer, necessitating his trial there rather than in the King's Bench. The Exchequer maintained a clear rule with the other equity court, the Court of Chancery; a case heard in one could not be re-heard in the other. Apart from that, cases of equity could be heard by either court. The Exchequer had superior status over inferior courts of equity, able to take cases from them and countermand their decisions. The jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts also overlapped with that of the Exchequer, particularly in relation to the collection of tithes, and there are many records of disputes between the two.

As well as appeals to the Exchequer Chamber, the court also allowed appeals to the House of Lords, which was first used in 1660 for the case of Fanshawe v Impey and confirmed in 1677.