date

April 1807  Happily superseded
April 1807

 Happily superseded

Lawyers judged

The Lawyers judged: or Observations

On the Memorial of the Lords of Session, and on the Report from the Committee of the Faculty of Advocates. On the Scotch Judicature Reform Bill.

In a Letter /series of Letters/ to the people of Scotland

Friends and Fellow Subjects

Mt own observations on the proposed plan of Reform are already before you: they are contained in a series of Letters to Lord Grenville.

My own plan on the same subject is also before you: or[?] in a course of becoming so: it is contained in the same series of Letters.

In the mean time come two official publications containing observations on the same authoritative plan by two bodies of lawyers of your own part of the country: the body of Judges, and the body of Advocates.

Both of them contain matter of the highest /highly worthy of your/ interest to you both of them however stand in need of an interpreter: listen, my friends, while one who has no interest in deceiving you, performs /strives to perform/ to the best of his judgment and ability that friendly office.
Similar Items
  • Title: [April 1807 Lawyers judged I]
    Description: April 1807

    Lawyers judged

    I begin of course with that paper which [...?] from the highest /superior/ of the two authorities - the only one of the two to which in so far as authority means power can with propriety be said to be an authority - the body of /[...?]/ your highest class of Judges.

    The observations contained in it are distributed I observe in 50 articles. The matter contained in them will be found referable to one or other of three heads - 1. Opinions. 2. Facts. 3. Arguments.

    The distinction is not an idle one.

    As to the opinions - I mean the crude /so far as they are mere/ opinions, one[?] supported either by fact or argument - I state them without hesitation, as not meriting /entitled/ to have any weight with you /exercise any influence on your judgment/.

    The facts, subject to some limitation /which will be stated/ possess a title /seem entitled/ to your evidence.

    Arguments - taking them independently /abstraction made //considered without reference to abstraction[?]/ of opinion and of the authority of any attached[?]: the source from which the opinion flows - will always possess each of them the proper value that belongs to it. Though /as an opinion/ the opinion should be worth nothing, the argument would not be less deserving of attention. Though the opinion be even[?] so well entitled to attention, it will not give force to an argument which has none.
  • Title: [29 April 1807 9 Lawyers judged]
    Description: 29 April 1807

    9

    Lawyers judged

    Letter 1

    On this occasion, as on every other, to the rendering whether in the way of execution or suggestion by the /in/ exercise of the intellectual faculty, any useful service, the union of two conditions /two conditions/ the will and the power are indispensable, viz: the will /inclination/ and the power - the inclination and the ability. On this present occasion in question neither of the conditions /[...?]/ appear to me as being present /possessed/ by either of the contending parties: the observations I shall have to submitt to you, my friends will bear [...?] [...?] but it will rest with you to judge

    In fact in the present instance, the disstinction is not much more than [...?] /it is with laws, as with shoes: never to/ not to have had the will is not to have the power to make them good /fit for use/.

    /+in the making of good laws as in th making of good shoes it/
  • Title: [[...?] April 1807 + (1 Lawyers]
    Description: [...?] April 1807

    + (1

    Lawyers judged

    Letter 5

    Frauds and fellow-subjects

    The necessity of reform respecting the administration of civil justice in Scotland is admitted on all hands.

    Various plans on that subject are now before you

    My own among the rest

    My own [...?] upon two main points /proposals //propositions/:

    1. The substitution for the natural system /mass //form[?]/ of procedure, as exemplified in the Small Debts Courts, to the technical system of procedure, or pursued in the regular Courts in general and in particular in the Court of Session

    2. The reducing the whole body of Scotch law, and in particular the civil branch in particular, by the authority of Parliament, from its present debateable state /state of darkness/, without any certain words belonging to it, to the state of statutory, or as it is sometimes called written law.