Guide to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission Records

The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly was established in 1907 and the provisions relating to it became a part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. The following year, the General Assembly established the Standing Committee on Judicial Business and assigned to it the duties of deciding the question of the regularity of papers, determining whether questions raised were questions of doctrine or constitution and, upon deciding there was a case, to recommend it to General Assembly for reference to the Permanent Judicial Commission. When the General Assembly meeting in 1925 abolished this Standing Committee, it became the duty of the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly to transmit directly to the Permanent Judicial Commission "all papers which purport to be judicial in character leaving it to the Permanent Judicial Commission to return to the General Assembly any papers deemed by it without the sphere of its jurisdiction."

The Presbyterian system of government is representative in character. Representatives elected by the people represent them in a series of graded courts, in ascending order: the Session, the Presbytery, the Synod, and the General Assembly. Each of the higher courts has jurisdiction over the lower and the individuals in them. Each is governed by majority rule. The General Assembly is the supreme court of the Church and its decisions are final. The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly was empowered to receive all complaints and appeals regularly before it from the actions of the inferior judicatories. Complaints had to do with non-judicial or administrative cases; appeals with judicial cases. Record Group 18 includes some of each of these types, judicial cases and non-judicial cases.