The conflict-of-interest code for the judges of the Indies (Recopilación, libro II, título XVI)
A judge of an American Audiencia could not marry in his district, nor let his children marry there; could not buy land or houses, sow wheat or maize, lend at interest, hold a pearl canoe, work a mine, take a present, take a loan, or keep close friendships with the people he judged; and had to pay Indians the city price for an egg. The same título prints the evasions the crown had found, and one prejudicial preamble it never removed.
Why this wins its question: The standard English sentence about the Audiencias is that colonial judges were corrupt and their seats eventually sold, and it is offered without a line of the law behind it. Read from the 1791 printing page by page, título XVI of libro II turns out to be one of the most detailed conflict-of-interest regimes any early modern state wrote: a marriage bar extending to a judge's children and to a mere engagement, dispensations first reserved and then abolished outright, salary stopped by the treasury on suspicion alone, a property bar written because the crown had found judges holding land through nominees, and bans on sowing grain, lending at censo, owning a pearl canoe, entering a mine, taking a present, taking a loan, and dining too often with the neighbours. This object quotes each of those with the monarch, place and date printed in the margin — and, in the same título, the law that makes Indians serve the judges on a preamble about natural idleness, and the two laws that make a judge pay them the market price. Both sides come from one digitised volume, so the code is shown convicting and exposing itself at once.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The marriage bar is the centrepiece and it is absolute in form. Ley lxxxij of libro II, título XVI — Philip II at Madrid, 10 February 1575, and Philip III at Elvas, 17 March 1619 — forbids any viceroy, president, oidor, alcalde del crimen or fiscal, and their sons and daughters while the father serves, to marry within the district, "pena de perder los oficios", the plazas declared vacant by the fact itself and given to others. The reason is printed with it: so that the ministers are "libres de parientes y deudos en aquellas partes, para que sin aficion hagan y exerzan lo que es á su cargo".
The bar reaches the intention, not only the wedding. Ley lxxxiiij — Philip II at Viana, 15 December 1592 — declares that any of the persons named who "tratare ó concertare de casarse por palabra, ó promesa, ó escrito, ó con esperanza de que les habemos de dar licencia" incurs deprivation of office by that alone, and may not hold any other office of any quality in the Indies. An engagement, or the hope of a dispensation, costs the same as a marriage.
Then the dispensation itself is closed, and the code preserves the trace of the loophole it is closing. Ley lxxxij had reserved "nuestra licencia particular"; ley lxxxv — Philip III at Elvas, 12 May 1619, with a later confirmation printed as "en esta Recopilacion" — orders that the Council of the Indies admit no memorial or petition for such a licence without first executing the penalties, and that "queda absolutamente prohibido el dar semejantes licencias". The exception and its abolition stand in adjacent columns of the same page.
Enforcement was handed to the paymaster rather than to a court. Ley lxxxvj — Philip III at Lerma, 19 July 1608 — orders the officials of the Real Hacienda that from the day it is established that an oidor or other minister has arranged to marry in his district, "no le paguen, ni acudan con el salario de su plaza". The sanction begins with the treasurer's ledger, before any finding of fact by a tribunal.
The property bar is as wide as the marriage bar and its preamble is a confession. Ley lvj — Philip III at Madrid, 24 December 1615 — begins by stating that notwithstanding what his grandfather and father had ordered, the ministers "interponen terceras personas en cuyas cabezas tienen casas y grangerías, siendo ellos los verdaderos dueños", and orders that the excesses be punished "sin aguardar á tiempo de visitas": the price of any estancia, huerta, casa or tierra bought is forfeit even if it has since been sold, and the front-man in whose name it stood forfeits as much again. The crown prints the evasion it has discovered next to the remedy.
The economic disqualifications run further than a modern reader expects. Ley lvij — Philip II, Valladolid, 9 May 1565 — forbids presidents, oidores, alcaldes and fiscales to sow wheat or maize at all, "ni para sus casas, ni para vender". Ley lviij — Charles V and the governing queen of Bohemia at Valladolid, 2 May 1550, and Philip II at Lisbon, 27 July 1582 — forbids them to lend money at censo, perpetual or redeemable. Ley lviiij extends the trading ban expressly to holding "Canoas de perlas" or any other fishery, by themselves, through interposed persons or in company. Ley lx bars them from armadas, from discoveries and from mines, "en mucha, ni en poca cantidad", anywhere in the district where they reside.
Gifts, loans and even sociability are legislated. Ley lxviiij — Philip II at Badajoz, 3 June 1580, chapter 48 of the Instrucción, and Philip III at San Lorenzo, 5 September 1620 — orders that presidents and oidores receive from no one "dineros prestados, ni otras cosas, dádivas, ni presentes, en poca, ó en mucha cantidad", and that they "no tengan familiaridad estrecha con personas Eclesiásticas, ni Seglares, ni la permitan á sus familias". Ley lxx — Philip III at Madrid, 13 December 1620 — adds that they take charge of no business of any quality and "susténtense de sus haciendas y salarios, sin valerse de otros medios", the prohibition extending to their wives and children.
The rule against social entanglement is stated with unusual candour about what it is for. Ley lxxiiij — Philip III at San Lorenzo, 3 August 1613 — orders viceroys and presidents to stop the excess of card games in the houses of oidores and alcaldes del crimen, and equally "las visitas de Ministros con vecinos particulares, y de mugeres de Ministros con las de los vecinos, de que resultan amistades y parcialidades", so that "se haga justicia con libertad". Ley lxxv, of 20 November 1610, bars ministers, their relatives and servants from keeping gaming tables at home "aunque sea con pretexto de sacar limosnas para Hospitales". Ley lxxiij, of 1572 and 1618, forbids them and their servants to accept powers of attorney from litigants, and orders the royal officials not to pay them if they use such powers to collect from the treasury.
Two of the laws protect people rather than the bench, and they are the least quoted. Ley lxxvj — Philip II at Madrid, 20 June 1567 — orders presidents, oidores and other ministers to pay the Indians for herb, fish, eggs "y las demas cosas, que hubieren menester, á los precios, y como valen en las Ciudades, y lo pagan los demas vecinos de ellas, y en esto no haya diferencia alguna, pena de lo pagar con el doblo". Ley lxxviij and its continuation of 1582, 1588, 1593 and 1599 forbid them to take or occupy anyone's house against the owner's will, require them to rent as other private persons do, and direct that a tasador be appointed if the price is disputed. A judge in the Indies could not requisition a lodging or take an egg without the market price.
The counterpoint is printed inside the same título, and it is not incidental. Ley lxxvij — the Prince Governor at Toro, 21 September 1551, Philip III at Valladolid, 24 November 1601, and at Aranjuez, 26 May 1609 — permits Indians to serve oidores and other ministers, and opens with the words "Por evitar la ociosidad, á que naturalmente son inclinados los Indios, y por su propio bien y conveniencia". The operative part requires that in payment and treatment "no haya niguna diferencia" from what other vecinos give; the preamble asserts a natural idleness as the ground for the service. Both halves are the same law, reissued three times across fifty-eight years without the preamble being touched.
A second abuse the code names against itself. Ley lxxij — 19 December 1618 — records that the president, oidores and royal officials of the Audiencia of the Philippines "suelen repartir entre todos, los tributos de arroz, que nos pertenecen en la Pampanga, para el gasto de sus casas, tomándolo al precio, que por la tasa lo dan los tributarios á la cosecha", with the result that the rations run short and rice must be bought at excessive prices; the crown orders them to end "tan perniciosa costumbre". Ley lxxj forbids oidores acting in a vacancy to hand the vacant places of profit to themselves, their sons, kin or servants. The Recopilación is also a catalogue of what its own judges were doing.
What a code cannot show, stated so the object is not mistaken for a verdict. The dates printed in the margins run from 1550 to 1629 and the same prohibitions are re-enacted repeatedly across them — the marriage bar in 1575, 1592, 1608, 1619 and 1621; the property bar in 1615 explicitly because the earlier one was being evaded. Repetition of an order is evidence that it was issued again, and it is consistent with poor compliance, but it is not a measurement of compliance. Nothing read here establishes how many judges married in their districts, how many were deprived, or whether the doblo was ever collected. Confidence is 0.75 because the inference from re-enactment to non-observance, though natural, is an inference and not a printed statement.