aires du gouvernement_
represent the ministry of war on military tribunals, and more or less
correspond to the British judge-advocate (see COURT-MARTIAL).

COMMISSION (from Lat. _commissio_, _committere_), the action of
committing or entrusting any charge or duty to a person, and the charge
or trust thus committed, and so particularly an authority, or the
document embodying such authority, given to some person to act in a
particular capacity. The term is thus applied to the written authority
to command troops, which the sovereign or president, as the ultimate
commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces, grants to persons
selected as officers, or to the similar authority issued to certain
qualified persons to act as justices of the peace. For the various
commissions of assize see ASSIZE. The word is also used of the order
issued to a naval officer to take the command of a ship of war, and when
manned, armed and fully equipped for active service she is said to be
"put in commission."

In the law of evidence (q.v.) the presence of witnesses may, for certain
necessary causes, be dispensed with by the order of the court, and the
evidence be taken by a commissioner. Such evidence in England is said to
be "on commission" (see R.S.C. Order XXXVII.). Such causes may be
illness, the intention of the witness to leave the country before the
trial, residence out of the country or the like. Where the witness is
out of the jurisdiction of the court, and his place of residence is a
foreign country where objection is taken to the execution of a
commission, or is a British colony or India, "letters of request" for
the examination of the witness are issued, addressed to the head of the
tribunal in the foreign country, or to the secretary of state for the
colonies or for India.

Where the functions of an office are transferred from an individual to a
body of persons, the body exercising these delegated functions is
generally known as a commission and the members as commissioners; thus
the office of lord high admiral of Great Britain is administered by a
permanent board, the lords of the admiralty. Such a delegation may be
also temporary, as where the authority under the great seal to give the
royal assent to legislation is issued to lords commissioners. Similarly
bodies of persons or single individuals may be specially charged with
carrying out particular duties; these may be permanent, such as the
Charity Commission or the Ec