Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan
25
was created, composed of five judges, appointed by the
Governor-General-in-Council, by letters patent under the Great Seal of Canada.
All former Acts, not consistent with the new Act, were repealed. The Supreme
Court was given vastly widened jurisdiction, having all the powers incident to
a superior court of civil and criminal jurisdiction under the law of England,
and the rights and privileges possessed by Her Majesty's Superior courts of
Common Law, by the Court of Chancery and by the Court of Probate in England.
In addition, the Supreme Court was, under the direction of the
Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, required to sit en bane for the purpose of
hearing appeals.
In the following year five
judicial districts were formed: Assiniboia, Eastern and Western; Alberta,
Northern and Southern; and Saskatchewan.
The Dominion Act of 1905 creating the Province of Saskatchewan, while
continuing in force all the laws of the North-west Territories, consistent with
the Federal Act, provided that the Provincial Legislature might abolish the
Supreme Court of the North-west Territories. This was done in 1907, when the
Saskatchewan Legislature, by passing a Judicature Act, "abolished the
Supreme Court of the North-west Territories,
as well as the jurisdiction, powers and authority belonging to the said
Court."
The same Act constituted and
established the Supreme Court of Saskatchewan. To this Court was given the
jurisdiction formerly exercised by the Territorial Supreme Court, now
abolished. It was, in addition, given the jurisdiction, rights, powers and
privileges, vested prior to 1873 in such courts of England as the High Court of
Chancery, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas at Westminster, Exchequer, Probate,
Commissions of Assize, Oyer and Terminer, and General Goal Delivery.
The Supreme Court of
Saskatchewan, sitting en bane, had not only all the appellate powers of the old
Territorial Supreme Court, sitting en
bane, but also
25
Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan
