(Download) "In Re Woodside-Florence Irr. Dist." by Supreme Court of Montana " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: In Re Woodside-Florence Irr. Dist.
- Author : Supreme Court of Montana
- Release Date : January 06, 1948
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 77 KB
Description
1. Courts ? Words &; Phrases ? "Jurisdiction." "Jurisdiction" which is derived from the Latin "jurisdicto," or "I speak by law," in a broad sense, is the power of a court to hear and determine controversies, and in a more restricted sense is its power to adjudicate a particular case. 2. Courts ? Consent cannot cure jurisdictional defect. Litigants cannot invest a court with any jurisdiction not conferred - Page 347 on it by law, so consent cannot cure jurisdictional defects resulting from the determination of matters by a person, judge or tribunal not qualified or empowered to preside or perform judicial acts. 3. Judges ? Effect of filing disqualifying affidavit. The mere filing of the affidavit ipso facto worked the disqualification of the district judge against whom it was directed. 4. Judges ? Duties of disqualified judge. Upon the filing of affidavit the authority of challenged judge to act in the cause is limited to doing of the purely ministerial acts of arranging the calendar, regulating the order of business, calling in another judge, or transferring the cause, if a transfer is proper. 5. Judges ? Effect of disqualification when two judges in district. Where an affidavit of prejudice is directed to the district judge, the judge first disqualified must call in another judge of the same district if there be more than one judge in the district, and if all judges of a district are disqualified in a given case, a judge of another district must be called in to preside. 6. Judges ? Policy of judicial system. The policy of the judicial system is that no judge should be allowed to sit when he is laboring under bias or prejudice toward one or more of the parties litigant. 7. Judges ? Imputation of bias, how effected. The imputation in an affidavit of prejudice against a district judge may be in the language of the statute, and proof of facts showing actual bias and prejudice is neither required nor permitted. 8. Judges ? Comparison of divisions of section 8868. The disqualification of a district judge for prejudice provided for in subdivision 4 of section 8868 stands upon the same level of importance as do those provided for in the preceding three subdivisions of the statute stating when a judge may be disqualified, except as to the time when the imputation may be made, and operates as effectively if invoked at the proper time. 9. Judges ? Purpose of Fair Trial law. The Fair Trial law provides a speedy, efficient and dignified means of enabling a litigant to have a change of judges on account of prejudice or believed prejudice of district judge without undue embarrassment to any one and without having to assign his reasons or being compelled to offer proof in support of the averments of his disqualifying affidavit. 10. Judges ? Construction of Fair Trial Law. The Fair Trial Law should be construed strictly in accordance to express terms and not broadened by implication to include conditions not clearly within the statute. 11. Judges ? Waiver of right to disqualify. The right to disqualify district judge for prejudice under the Fair Trial Law is waived by failure to exercise the right, and the waiver may be by non-action or by action, but after the right to disqualify has been exercised and disqualification effected and jurisdiction lost, one or part of the litigants, over protests of the others, cannot waive the disqualification or restore the lost jurisdiction. 12. Judges ? When disqualification may not be waived. The disqualification of a judge cannot be waived if it is grounded in public policy or is based on an absolute constitutional or statutory prohibition against a disqualified judge sitting in the case. 13. Courts. Every act of a court beyond its jurisdiction is void.