The phrase "authority was exercised" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts where you are discussing the application or enforcement of power or control by an individual or organization.
Example: "The committee determined that authority was exercised appropriately during the decision-making process."
Alternatives: "power was applied" or "control was enacted."
For the next three centuries, local authority was exercised by the magnates of each province, vassals successively of Persia (Iran), of Byzantium, and, after ad 654, of the Arab caliphs, who established an emirate in Tbilisi.
Somerset ruled in loco parentis; the divinity of the crown resided in the boy king, but authority was exercised by an uncle who proved himself to be more merciful than tactful and more idealistic than practical.
Most lived in small-scale societies, based on kinship, in which political authority was exercised by a chief who claimed seniority by virtue of his royal genealogy but who may have risen to power through his access to mineral resources, hunting, or ritual skills.
Aquinas and other Church Fathers argued that this control, however, was only justified if the master's authority was exercised for the betterment of his subject ("Commentary on the Sentences," book 2, d. 44 q1, or see S. F. Brett, "Slavery and the Catholic Tradition," pp. 70-72).
It is vital for democracy that this authority be exercised effectively, transparently and fairly.
In such monarchies political authority is exercised by elected politicians, and the political process runs according to democratic procedures.
A second conceptual account of legitimate political authority implies that those over whom authority is exercised have some kind of duty with regard to the authority.
Sovereign authority is exercised within borders, but also, by definition, with respect to outsiders, who may not interfere with the sovereign's governance.
Such arrangements differ from so-called systems of (sovereign) states, which themselves exhibit regular and irregular forms depending on the way their collective authority is exercised.
This represents a shift away from the more traditional academic model in favor of a more corporate approach, with governance at the corporate level defined as "the manner in which power and authority are exercised in organizations in the allocation and management of resources" (Carnegie & Tuck, 2010).
How that authority is exercised, and whether ex-cons can apply for restoration of their rights, is left up to the states to decide.
