In Reformed polity, the judicial power of the Synod pertains to things like excommunication, church-censure, and depositions. The best and most comprehensive explanation I have found of this is in the Dutch Reformed scholastic divine Gisbertus Voetius, from his magnum opus on church government Politicae Ecclesiasticae (4 vols!):
“I add that they have legislative power to make ecclesiastical laws that bind the conscience, not indeed directly, primarily, and immediately, but indirectly, mediately, and by consequence…They also make laws or constitutions and canons about particular orders, modes, and other circumstantial aspects of conducting sacred rites and exercising ecclesiastical government and discipline, to the reception and observance of all which, insofar as they do not contradict divine and natural law, consciences are bound mediately, indirectly, and by consequence,....We see, therefore, that in this whole line of argumentation, the statement is a figment: that true and genuine power of government is to formally contain the power properly and principally of making laws for consciences, binding and obliging the conscience primarily, per se, immediately, and directly. If this fabrication were granted or conceded, it would follow that magistrates have no remaining legislative power, nor parents, masters, or teachers any power of commanding children, servants, or students, nor the latter any glory or necessity of obeying.” (Gisbertus Voetius, Politicae Ecclesiasticae, Pt. III, Book IV, tract. 1, Q. 7)
Obj: If Synods and their decrees ought to be tried and examined by the Word of God, and are not binding in and of themselves, then how can they be authoritative in any manner, when anyone may reject them by private judgment?
Resp: “That any man should duly, and as he ought beleeve, and receive the decision of a Synod, it must be both true, and he must believe and know that it is true, but that it may oblige him and doth oblige him, whether his conscience be erroneous or no, is as true, for then this Commandment (Thou shalt not kill) (Honor thy father and thy mother) should lay no obligation on a man that believes it is service to God to kill the Apostle, as Joh. 16. some doe. For no man is exempted from an obligation to obey God's Law, because of his own sinful and culpable ignorance, for we speak not now of invincible ignorance of these things which we are not obliged to know or believe. But if our sinful and erroneous conscience free us from actual obligation to be tyed by a Law, then our erroneous conscience freeth us from sinning against a Law, and so from punishment, for whatever freeth a man from actual obligation freeth him also from actual sinning, for all sinne is a doing against a Law-obligation, and if so, then are none to be led by any rule but their own conscience, the written Law and Gospel is not henceforth our rule any more.” (Samuel Rutherford)
Obj: Is an erroneous conscience binding?
Resp: “The learned Casuists teach us, that an erring conscience, though non obligat, yet ligat; though we be not obliged to doe that which it prescribeth, yet are we bound not to doe that which it condemneth….Because he who doeth anything against his conscience, doeth it against the Will of God, though not materially and truly, yet formally and by way of interpretation, for so much as that which conscience counselleth or prescribeth, it counselleth it under the respect and account of the Will of God He who reproacheth some private man, taking him to be the King, is thought to have hurt not the private man, but the King himself. So he that contemneth his conscience, contemneth God himselfe, because that which conscience counselleth or adviseth, is taken to be God's will.” (George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies
[Leiden: W. Christiaens, 1637], pg. 16-17)
“It is most false then, that these Libertines say that the Word does not actually oblige except it be understood, for the understanding, information and indictment of conscience does not add any actual obligation to the Word that it had not before, it only is a reporter, to carry both the Word and the actual obligation to the man; the herald promulgating the law adds no obligation, actual or potential, to the law that it had not before, only it makes an union in distance, and near application and conjunction between the actually obliging law and the understanding knowledge of the person or subject, who is obliged to keep the law.” (Samuel Rutherford, A Free Disputation against the Pretended Liberty of Conscience [London: Andrew Crook, 1649], pg. 134)
Any will that is acting against its conscience is wrong and sinful. The Synods cannot oblige a person to act against his conscience:
“For in matters of indifference, the will that is at variance with erring reason or conscience, is evil in some way on account of the object, on which the goodness or malice of the will depends; not indeed on account of the object according as it is in its own nature; but according as it is accidentally apprehended by reason as something evil to do or to avoid. And since the object of the will is that which is proposed by the reason, as stated above (Article 3), from the very fact that a thing is proposed by the reason as being evil, the will by tending thereto becomes evil. And this is the case not only in indifferent matters, but also in those that are good or evil in themselves. For not only indifferent matters can received the character of goodness or malice accidentally; but also that which is good, can receive the character of evil, or that which is evil, can receive the character of goodness, on account of the reason apprehending it as such. For instance, to refrain from fornication is good: yet the will does not tend to this good except in so far as it is proposed by the reason. If, therefore, the erring reason propose it as an evil, the will tends to it as to something evil. Consequently the will is evil, because it wills evil, not indeed that which is evil in itself, but that which is evil accidentally, through being apprehended as such by the reason. In like manner, to believe in Christ is good in itself, and necessary for salvation: but the will does not tend thereto, except inasmuch as it is proposed by the reason. Consequently if it be proposed by the reason as something evil, the will tends to it as to something evil: not as if it were evil in itself, but because it is evil accidentally, through the apprehension of the reason. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 9) that "properly speaking the incontinent man is one who does not follow right reason; but accidentally, he is also one who does not follow false reason." We must therefore conclude that, absolutely speaking, every will at variance with reason, whether right or erring, is always evil.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-I, Q. 19, art. 5)
Obj: If a person only obeys the Church when they judge to be biblical and lawful, then ecclesiastical authority is rendered to be null and no more than binding than the private counsel of an individual.
Resp: " It follows in no sort, if rulers are only to be obeyed when they bring God’s Word, that then they are no more to be obeyed than equals and inferiors, because there is a double obedience, one of conscience, and [one] objective, coming from the thing commanded; And in respect of this, the Word has no less authority, and does no less challenge obedience of conscience, and objective, when my equal speaks it in a private way, yea, when I write it in my muse, than when a pastor speaks it by public authority; For we teach against Papists that the Word borrows no authority from men, nor is it with certainty of faith to be received as the Word of man, but as indeed the Word of God, as the Scripture says: 1. There is another obedience-official, which is also obedience of conscience, because the Fifth Commandment enjoins it. Yet not obedience of conscience coming from the particular [positive aspect] commanded in human laws, as human; so I owe obedience of subjection, and submission of affection, of fear, love, honor, respect, by virtue of the Fifth Commandment to rulers when they command according to God’s Word, and this I owe not to equals or inferiors; and so it follows not that the power of rulers and synods is titular, because they must warrant their mandates from the Word…3. That I owe no more objective subjection of conscience to this, ‘Thou shalt not murder’, ‘Believe in Jesus Christ,’ when rulers and pastors command them, than when I read them in God’s Word…whether public or private person, adds not any intrinsical authority to the Word, for then the Word should be more or less God’s Word, as the bearers were public, or private, more or less worthy. As God’s Word spoken by Amos, a prophet, should not be a word of such intrinsical authority as spoken by Moses, both a prince and a prophet." (Samuel Rutherford, The Divine Right of Church Government [London: John Field, 1646], pgs. 210-211)
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