Chief Magistrate is a generic designation for a Magistrate whose office -individual or collegial- is the highest in his class, in either of the fundamental meanings of Magistrate (which often overlapped in the Ancient régime): as a major political and administrative office (in a republican form of government, at state or lower level), and/or as a judge (in a given jurisdiction, not necessarily a whole state) A magistrate is a judicial officer with limited authority to administer and enforce the law. ...

governing Chief magistrates

If the jurisdiction he heads is considered to have statehood, he is generally its Head of state and (in various degrees of authority) chief executive. It is not possible to read such distinctions reliably from the style in use as title and competence may change independently. The President of the Philippines meets with the President of the United States. ...

Chief magistratures in Antiquity include the following titles:

• Consul
• Dictator
• Suffet

Chief magistratures in the feudal era (and sometimes beyond) include the following titles: For modern diplomatic consuls, see Consulate general. ... Dictator was the title of a magistrate in ancient Rome appointed by the Senate to rule the state in times of emergency. ... In Hebrew and several other Semitic languages, shofet (plural shoftim) literally means Judge, from the verb Å -F-T, to pass judgment. In ancient Israel, the shoftim were chieftains who united various Israelite tribes in time of mutual danger to defeat foreign enemies. ...

• Consul
• Gonfaloniere
• Lord Mayor, Mayor and various close equivalents such as (Ober)Bürgermeister in German language, (Lord) Provost in Scotland
• Podesta
• Rettore

For modern diplomatic consuls, see Consulate general. ... A Gonfaloniere is a government post in medieval and renaissance Florence. ... Councillor Patrick (Pat) John Stannard, Lord Mayor of Oxford (2004). ... A mayor (from the Latin maīor, meaning larger,greater) is the politician who serves as chief executive official of some types of municipalities. ... Provost (through O. Fr. ... For information on the phantom island of the same name, see Podesta (island). ...

judicial Chief Magistrates

Unlike the previous section, this does not require any political autonomy for the jurisdiction, so there can be aditional circonscriptions, even created solely for the administration of justice. It is not uncommon for magistratures to perform additional functions separate from litigation and arbitration, rather as a registrar or notary, but as these are not there defining core-business, they are irrelevant in the context of this article.

nominal Chief Magistrate

equivalent judicial titles

• Chief justice