Judices Electi

Judices Electi,

select judges, is a term applied to a number of judges occasionally selected to hear an appeal from an excommunicated presbyter or deacon against his own bishop. The Council of Sardica allowed an appeal to the metropolitan; and in such a case the metropolitan had three ways of proceeding-either to select a number of judges, generally twelve, to hear the case; or to refer the matter to a provincial synod; or to hear the causes himself without a synod. It is, however, doubtful whether a metropolitan had power to depose a bishop.