54 No. 99 PRESENT CONDITIONS [ value or a question of competence arises, and appeals in criminal cases unless the offender is a non-native and the punishment exceeds five years' imprisonment, and which also act as a criminal court in cases of charges against inferior judges. The Conseil supérieur du Congo which sits at Brussels acts as a Court of Cassation in civil matters, as a criminal court of appeal in cases affecting judges, and as a criminal court in cases affecting judges of the Courts of Appeal. Crimes com mitted in the Congo may also be punished by the Belgian courts acting on the Congo law. The native courts are those held by the chiefs according to native custom. Their power of punishment is limited in two respects : they can inflict no other corporal punish ment 1 than flogging, which is forbidden for old men, invalids, women, and children , and the punishment must not exceed twelve strokes ; and they must report to the European authorities all cases of canni balism, ordeal by poison, human sacrifice, slave-trading, and the trade in or use of hemp, none of which are crimes by native law. The competence of a chief never applies to Europeans, and is normally confined to cases between natives neither of whom is 'matri culated '.2 The native court is the normal court for cases between such natives ; but either party may insist on going to a European court. In criminal cases the native court is the normal one ; but the officer of the ministère public may decline to let the chief deal with any case, and any man dealt with by the chief may ask a European court to rehear the charge. These provisions are held to render any formal appeal from a 1 For the other native punishments see Johnston . George Grenfell, ü . 695 , 696 .

2 Matriculation is the entry in a register of civil status, normally that kept by the Territorial Administrator of the territory to which is attached the chiefdom to which a native belongs.