Magistrate

In Savamese tradition, a magistrate (Savamese: magistrat, from Old Sabamic: magistratus) is the generic term to refer to a functionary holding a medium-to-high managerial position in a governmental, regional, or municipal administration and tasked with exercising the authority of the state; as a result, administrations are often called "magistratures" ("magistracy" in Ellish).

Historical usage

In a typical Sabamanian-inspired respublican system, magistrates are appointed by the parliament. In this case, magistrates are officers of the state tasked with applying the executive powers that directly depend from the parliament, in opposition to the ministers, who apply executive powers relating to the sovereign. Despite sourcing their authority from parliament, magistrates are never sitting members of the legislature. In this system, the appointment of magistrates usually takes the form of a competitive election in which only the parliamentarians vote. However, many cases exists where the election is open to all voters (typically the nobility). Meritocracy is considered a central part of the selection process for magistrates, but nepotism and the trading of favours are regularly seen.

Modern usage

As a result of the increase in the fusion of powers to the benefit of parliament, which has been taking place in all respublics for the past three centuries, the term minister fell into desuetude in the Sabamic space, with magistrate taking its generic meaning. The reverse semantic shift took place in Elland and Ellish, where the term minister has became the most used.

Perhaps ironically, under the influence of radicalism in the 19^th century, Savam has moved toward a state of affairs where the appointment of magistrate is now purely an executive decision without parliamentary involvement: the Viceroy of Savam appoints and dismisses most federal magisterial positions in the empire. Because the Savamese federal executive does not depend from the Emperor, one cannot argue that this system removes the distinction between magistrates and ministers; in effect, there are no ministers at the federal level in Savam.

A typical example of a magistrate is the prefect: in modern Savam, a prefect is in charge of the administration of a prefecture, an intermediate-level administrative division or an overseas dependency. In medieval and antique Savam, a prefect was usually the highest non-directly elected position in a city bureaucracy, often with responsibilities extending to the management of tax revenues.

In modern parlance, magistrate is usually not used to refer to politicians, although this was often the case in the antiquity, where the term originated in the Sabāmani Civilisation.