Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
I am, however, well aware that the point of competence is raised in many cases, since in practically every case in which a party is said to have been ruled out of court through some error of form, questions such as the following arise: whether it was lawful for this person to bring an action, or to bring it against some particular person, or under a given law, or in such a court, or at such a time, and so on
But the question of competence as regards persons, times, legal actions and the rest originates in some pre-existent cause: the question turns therefore not on competence itself, but on the cause with which the point of competence originates.
You ought to demand the return of a deposit not before the praetor but before the consuls, as the sum is too large to come under the praetor's jurisdiction.The question then arises whether the sum is too large, and the dispute is one
of fact.
You have no right to bring an action against me, as it is impossible for you to have been appointed to represent the actual plaintiff.It then has to be decided whether he could have been so appointed.
You ought not to have proceeded by interdict, [*](sc. by getting an order for restitution. ) but to have put in a plea for possession.The point in doubt is whether the interdict is legal. All these points fall under the head of legal questions.
not even those special pleas, in which questions of competence make themselves most evident, give rise to the same species of question as those laws under which the action is brought, so that the enquiry is