The demands of Our subjects afford Us an opportunity to enact laws for their benefit. A certain patron stated the following case, namely: A law is in existence which provides that where an appellant keeps silent, or a plaintiff does not prosecute his case for two years, he shall be deprived of the resource of appeal, and cannot proceed further with it, and the decision which has been appealed from shall be affirmed, and shall become obligatory upon both parties. A certain Hesychius and his adversary had a lawsuit before an ordinary judge, and Hesychius, having had a decision rendered against him, took an appeal, which was brought before your tribunal. While the case was pending before you, the parties abandoned it, and appointed arbiters for its settlement; but this proceeding was also abandoned, and the parties did not conduct the case to a conclusion before them, and the two years having elapsed, the adversary of Hesychius now alleges that the suit can no longer be prosecuted in your court by the party who lost it, but the decision must be ratified, as the said term of two years has expired; and he also states that Hesychius cannot proceed further in your tribunal for the reason that he had taken the case before arbiters.

  Therefore We order that the matter which We have just mentioned shall, in no way, be prejudiced by lapse of time, and that the decision of the first judge shall not be affirmed after an appeal has once been taken from it; but that the case shall continue to be conducted to judgment before Your Glory, even though two years, or ten thousand more, may have elapsed. Hereafter, in every instance in which anything of this kind happens, and, after a case has been brought before the appellate judge (or where this has not yet been done), arbiters are appointed, and a delay of two years subsequently takes place, within which term the appellate judges are required to dispose of litigation; and the suit should, for some reason or other, be returned to the court of appeal, all the parties to the same shall be allowed to conduct it to judgment, just as if they had not abandoned the appellate court to have recourse to arbiters, and without anyone being able to plead the expiration of the two years in bar of further proceedings. For it is not just for him who has once chosen other judges to be allowed to take advantage of the silence of the injured party, on the ground that he entrusted his case to arbiters, and did not prosecute the case before the appellate judge because it had been submitted to arbitration.

  We desire that these rules shall be observed in every transaction in your tribunal, as well as in every other in which appeals are determined, so that Our subjects may be subjected to no injustice. If, however, the term of two years should elapse after the parties have abandoned arbitration, then We wish the original decision to be affirmed in accordance with the provisions which We have laid down, and which shall hereafter be observed in every instance. All other laws which have heretofore been enacted with reference to proceedings on appeal and have been included by Us in Our Code of Laws shall remain in full force.