In no other country of Europe were the regular courts less subservient to the government than in France, but by the same token there were few other countries in which recourse to special courts was more common. These two things were more closely related than one might imagine. The king had virtually no influence on the fate of judges. He could not remove them, transfer them, or even, as a general rule, promote them. In short, he had no hold over them, whether through ambition or fear. He soon came to regard this independence as an impediment to his will. Hence, more than anywhere else, he was driven to deny them jurisdiction over cases directly impinging on royal power and to create alongside the regular courts, for his own private use, a more subservient type of tribunal, one that would offer a certain semblance of justice to his subjects without obliging him to fear the reality.

In countries, including certain parts of Germany, where the regular courts had never been as independent of the government as were the French tribunals of the time, no such precautions were taken, and administrative justice never existed. The prince already wielded enough power over judges that he had no need for commissaires, or commissioners, as French administrative judges were called.