The final judgment or decree of the supreme court of the District of Columbia in any case in which the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum of $5,000, may be reviewed and reversed or affirmed in this court upon writ of error, if the judgment is at law, or upon appeal, if the decree is in equity. Rev. St. §§ 691, 692, 705; Rev. St. D. C. §§ 846, 847; Act March 3, 1885, c. 366; 23 St. 443. The objection, founded on Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U.S. 487; S.C.. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 148, and cases there cited, that this court has no appellate jurisdiction of the present case, because there is nothing in dispute the value of which can be estimated in money, cannot be sustained. The matter in dispute is whether the petitioner is subject to a prosecution which may end in a sentence dismissing him from the service, and depriving him of a salary, as pay-master general during the residue of his term as such, and as pay inspector afterwards, which in less than two years would exceed the sum of $5,000. Rev. St. §§ 1556, 1565, 1624, arts. 8, 22, 48, 53. The case cannot be distinguished in principle from those in which it has been held that a judgment awarding a peremptory writ of mandamus to admit one to an office, or a judgment of ouster from an office, might be reviewed by this court upon writ of error, if the salary during the term of the office would exceed the sum named in the statute defining its appellate jurisdiction. Columbian Ins. Co. v. Wheelright, 7 Wheat. 534; U.S. v. Addison, 22 How. 174. It is often said that the granting or refusing of a writ of prohibition is discretionary, and, therefore, not the subject of a writ of error. That may be true where there is another legal remedy by appeal or otherwise, or where the question of the jurisdiction of the court whose action is sought to be prohibited is doubtful, or depends on facts which are not made matter of record, or where a stranger, as he may in England, applies for the writ of prohibition. But where that court has clearly no jurisdiction of the suit or prosecution instituted before it, and the defendant therein has objected to its jurisdiction at the outset, and has no other remedy, he is entitled to a writ of prohibition as matter of right; and a refusal to grant it, where all the proceedings appear of record, may be reviewed on error. This is the clear result of the modern English decisions, in which the law concerning writs of prohibition has been more fully discussed and explained than in the older authorities. In re Forster, 4 Best & S. 187, 199; Mayor, etc., of London v. Cox, L. R. 2 H. L. 239, 280; Worthington v. Jeffries, L. R. 10 C. P. 379, 380; Chambers v. Green, L. R. 20 Eq. 552, 555. See, also, Weston v. City Council of Charleston, 2 Pet. 449, reversing on error S.C.. Harp. 340.
The petitioner in the present case objected, at the very beginning of the proceedings before the court-martial, that it had no jurisdiction to try him on the charges laid before it; and the facts upon which his objection to its jurisdiction are based, as well as the final judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of prohibition, appear of record. The case is, therefore, within the appellate jurisdiction of this court. The supreme court of the District of Columbia having both common-law and equity powers, it would seem that the proceedings in this case must be considered as on the common-law side of that court, and that the proper mode of in voking the appellate jurisdiction of this court is by writ of error. In England, from long before the Declaration of Independence, writs of prohibition have usually issued from the courts of common law, and do not appear to have issued from a court of chancery in any case in which a court of law might issue them, except during vacation, when the courts of common law were not open. 2 Hale, P. C. 147; Lord HOLT, in Blackborough v. Davis, 1 P. Wms. 41, 43; Anon., 1 P. Wms. 476; Montgomery v. Blair, 2 Schoales & L. 136; In re Foster, 24 Beav. 428; In re Bateman, L. R. 9 Eq. 660. And in this country, so far as we are informed, these writs have never been issued but by a court of common-law jurisdiction. But as the petitioner has both taken an appeal and sued out a writ of error, it is immaterial which is the proper form of bringing up the case.