The Iceland year-book - 01.01.1927, Blaðsíða 61

official duties. Such cases are tried by a special
tribunal which exists only for that purpose.
The ministry is divided into three departments,
and is at present thus constituted:—
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, J6n
Thorlaksson.
Permanent Secretary, Gisli Isleifsson.
Minister of Industries and Commerce, Magnus
Gubmundsson.
Permanent Secretary, Vigfus Einarsson.
Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastics, (vacant);
Acting Minister, Magnus Gubmundsson.
Permanent Secretary, Gubmundur Sveinr.torns-
son.
After various coalition ministries had for a
period of eight years succeeded one another, the
present Conservative Government came into power
in 1924. It has, however, not an absolute majority
in the Althing, where the party division is as fol-
lows: — 21 Conservatives, 16 Progressives, 3 In-
dependents, 2 Socialists.
The ordinary judicial authority has only two
instances: the Supreme Court, which consists of
five judges, and the Lower Courts, in each of which
there is only one judge, and from which an ap-
peal lies direct to the Supreme Court.
For administrative purposes the country is
divided into 7 urban municipalities and 16
provinces, or prefectures, which are in turn sub-
divided into 226 parishes with a certain amount of
autonomy. The magistrate and chief executive of-
ficer of each province is the Prefect (syslumadur).
The chief executive officer of an urban munici-
pality is the Mayor (in Reykjavik called borgar-