Junta da Justiça (criminal justice board)

It was created in this archipelago by the royal decree (alvará régio) of 26 October 1803 and consisted of the Governor and Captain-General, the corregedor (royal district magistrate) of the judicial district (comarca), the juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district) and the Judge or Superintendent of Bequests and Chantries (provedor dos resíduos e capelas). We do not know how far its powers extended, but we have read somewhere that it was intended ‘to try the crimes committed in the judicial district, and that its decisions could be appealed to the Casa da Suplicação (supreme court of appeal in Lisbon), in Lisbon. For reasons unknown to us, the Governor and Captain-General informed the government in mainland Portugal in 1809 that it would be advisable to exclude the judge of pious bequests and chantries from the Junta da Justiça. And in 1824 the Governor complained to the higher authorities of the excesses committed by the said Junta, proposing that the royal decree of 15 October 1810, which had created the Junta da Justiça Criminal in the Azores, be extended to this archipelago. We do not know when it was abolished, but it was still operating here in 1830.