Roman Rota

The Roman Rota, formally the Tribunal Apostolicum Rotae Romanae (Latin, "Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota"), and anciently the Apostolic Court of Audience, is the highest appellate tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church, with respect to both Latin-rite members and the eastern-rite members and is, with respect to judicial trials conducted in the Catholic Church, the highest ecclesiastical court constituted by the Holy See. An appeal may be had to the Pope himself, who is the supreme ecclesiastical judge. The Catholic Church has a complete legal system, which is the oldest in the West still in use today. The court is named Rota (wheel) because the judges, called auditors, originally met in a round room to hear cases. The Rota was established in the 13th century.

The Pope appoints the auditors of the Rota and designates one of them the dean. On Saturday, September 22, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation as Dean, for reasons of age, of Bishop Antoni Stankiewicz, and appointed in his place Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, until then serving as a prelate Auditor of the Court of first instance. The Rota issues its decrees and sentences in Latin. The Rota adjudicates cases in a panel (called a Turnus) of three auditors, or more, depending on the complexity of the matter, assigned by the Dean of the Tribunal, though sometimes a larger number of auditors are assigned to a particular case. The auditors of the Rota are selected from among recognized ecclesiastical judges serving various Dioceses around the world.

The Rota's official records begin in 1171. Until the Risorgimento and the loss of the Papal States in 1870, the Rota was a civil tribunal and its judgements had the status of law in the Papal States.

...
Wikipedia