Mezi tradicí a realitou. Šlechtický zemský soud na tereziánské Moravě - agenda a složení stavovské instituce v posledních dekádách její existence (1740-1783).

Under Maria Theresa, the provincial courts in Moravia continued to operate along the lines set out in the judicial reforms of 1620-1650. Although the reform efforts of the Theresian system had little direct effect on them, the character of these courts did gradually change. By the early 1740s they were inundated with a backlog of unresolved cases that rendered them slow and unwieldy. Following the cancellation of inactive disputes, however, the number of open cases started to drop rapidly, and by the 1760s the provincial court was accepting an absolute minimum of new lawsuits. This was due less to any restrictions imposed by the state than to a lack of interest among the nobility in pursuing claims in the court. The provincial court continued to sit twice a year, but the reduction in the number of cases meant that the number of sessions in each judicial period also fell considerably. The nearly fifty cases heard by the provincial court in the reign of Maria Theresa were, however, similar in scope to those we are familiar with from the preceding period - property-related lawsuits among the nobility, disputes between monasteries and towns, criminal cases and claims by subject communities against their own landlords. Significant changes can also be discerned in the makeup of the courts, with judges being appointed on the basis of their legal training rather than their social standing or other “merits” and, generally, a far closer correspondence to other types of Theresian court, particularly the royal tribunal. There thus ceased to be a meaningful distinction between the royal and provincial judicial systems in the Theresian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]