Their jurisdictions coincide for the most part with the magisterial and fiscal boundaries.
Three justices of the peace are elected in each magisterial district for a term of four years.
Each county is divided into magisterial districts, varying in number from three to eleven.
It was restricted only by the conservatism of the Roman, by the condition that the initiative must always be taken by a magistrate, by the de facto authority of the senate, and by the magisterial veto which the senate often had at its command (see Senate).
According to the so-called Steinsche Stadteverfassung (the system introduced in Prussia by Stein in 1808), which, to differentiate between it and other systems, is called the Magistratsverfassung (or magisterial constitution), the municipal communes enjoy a greater degree of self-government than do the rural.