wolfgang sellert partiality. However, this was less true for the RHR. The trust of many thousands of parties who turned to theRHRduring its approximate 250year existence was mainly founded on their belief in its comprehensive jurisdiction and the emperors’ proverbial love of justice as well as their entitled assumption of achieving their goals there faster than at theRKG. It has also become clear however, that the imperial estates could not enforce the independence of theRHRwhich they had successfully achieved at theRKG. As long as the emperor was the traditional and legal salvator pacis for peace and justice in the empire and as long as he was the main chair and judge of theRHR, which was selected and paid for solely by him, the basic prerequisites for an independent judiciary were absent. The attempts to initiate change were always rejected by the emperor because, as Leopold I put it in 1663, this was viewed as an attempt to curtail “the imperial authority” and change a custom of more than a century old.81 As late as 1790, Benjamin Ferdinand Mohl, to his own regret, had to accept that even if one were to abolish the vota ad imperatorem, no one could prevent the emperor from intervening in the jurisdiction of the Aulic Council.82 Ultimately, the Imperial Court followed the maxim – as formulated in 1773 by a jurist of the municipality of Goslar – that the power of the state could claim jurisdiction over the State Council in a case if the general welfare, i.e. the external or internal peace of a country was endangered, or if the situation was expected to result in severely detrimental consequences for a country. Literally it said: „dass die Staatsmacht eine Rechtssache vor ihre[en] … Staats-Rath … ziehen dürfe, wenn die allgemeine Wohlfahrt, das heißt der äusserliche oder innerliche Ruhestand eines Landes in Gefahr ist, oder sehr mißliche Folgen einem Lande bevorstehen.“83 Although thevota ad imperatoremremained in force until the end of the Holy Roman Empire, by the second half of the eighteenth century at least, the Aulic Council showed occasional tendencies of some judicial independence. For example, when JosephII requested the names of those 81 Sellert, Wolfgang 1973 p. 350 f. 82 Mohl, Benjamin Ferdinand 1790 pp. 20 ff. and 32 Leyers, Peter 1976 p. 102. 83 Siebers, Jacob Gottlieb 1773 p. 49 f. 69
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