ce of future
judges. Hidetada, however, objected that human affairs change so
radically as to render it impossible to establish universally
recognizable precedents, and that if the judgments delivered in any
particular era were transmitted as guides for future generations, the
result would probably be slavish sacrifice of ethical principles on
the altar of stereotyped practice.

In 1631, when the third shogun, Iemitsu, ruled in Yedo, a public
courthouse (Hyojo-sho) was for the first time established. Up to that
time the shogun himself had served as a court of appeal in important
cases. These were first brought before a bugyo, and subsequently, if
specially vital issues were at stake, the shogun personally sat as
judge, the duty of executing his judgments being entrusted to the
bugyo and other officials.

Thenceforth, the custom came to be this: Where comparatively minor
interests were involved and where the matter lay wholly within the
jurisdiction of one administrator, that official sat as judge in a
chamber of his own mansion; but in graver cases and where the
interests concerned were not limited to one jurisdiction, the
Hyojo-sho became the judicial court, and the three administrators,
the roju, together with the censors, formed a collegiate tribunal.
There were fixed days each month for holding this collegiate court,
and there were also days when the three administrators alone met at
one of their residences for purposes of private conference. The
hearing by the shogun was the last recourse, and before submission to
him the facts had to be investigated by the chamberlains (sobashu),
who thus exercised great influence. A lawsuit instituted by a
plebeian had to be submitted to the feudatory of the region, or to
the administrator, or to the deputy (daikwari), but might never be
made the subject of a direct petition to the shogun. If the feudatory
or the deputy Were held to be acting contrary to the dictates of
integrity and reason, the suitor might change his domicile for the
purpose of submitting a petition to the authorities in Yedo; and the
law provided that no obstruction should be placed in the way of such
change.

LAW

As stated above, the original principle of the Bakufu was to avoid
compiling any written criminal code. But from the days of the sixth
and the seventh shoguns, Ienobu and Ietsugu, such provisions of
criminal law as related to ordinary offences came to be written in
the most intelligible style