Canon 1084

1. The following cases are reserved to a collegiate tribunal of

three judges: (1) cases concerning the bond of sacred ordination; (2) cases concerning the bond of marriage, with due regard

for cann. 1372-1374; (3) penal cases concerning offenses which

entail the penalties of major excommunication, privation of office, reduction to an inferior degree or deposition; (4) cases

which are determined in the particular law of the proper Church

sui iuris. 2. Other cases are to be heard by a sole judge,

unless the eparchial bishop reserves a certain case to a college

of three judges. 3. If it happens that a collegiate tribunal

cannot be established for a trial of first instance, while this

impossibility lasts, the patriarch, having consulted the permanent synod, can permit the eparchial bishop to entrust cases to a

single clerical judge who, if possible, is to employ an assessor

and an auditor; likewise the metropolitan who presides over a

metropolitan Church sui iuris as well as the metropolitan of a

patriarchal Church constituted outside the territorial boundaries

of the patriarchal Church may do likewise, in both situations

having consulted the two eparchial bishops who are senior by

episcopal ordination; in other instances, the matter is to be

referred to the Apostolic See.