date

1823 Feb. 16 J.B's Articles and Reasons
1823 Feb. 16

J.B's Articles and Reasons

Judiciary

1 To the people at large possessors of the supreme Constitutive power the function of placing the several Judges efficiently in the [...?] judicial districts ought not to be attributed.

Reason. They can not have sufficient means of being antecedently sufficiently acquainted with the aggregate appropriate aptitude of those who would be proposed or propose themselves for the office.

Reason 2. To find time sufficient for the exercise of such a function well or ill in addition to the operations necessary to the procurement of subsistence would be physically impossible.

2 In each such Judicial district neither ought the same power to be attributed with reference to the Judicatory having authority in and over such their respective districts

Reason 1. Want of adequate means of acquaintance /information/ as above

2. Probability of partial affection: and corruptive intimacy between the Judge so appointed and those leaders of the people by whose influence he had been appointed.

[...?] For this reason in each such district the functionary filling this office should at the time of his nomination be one of whom it is ascertained that he is as free as may be from all personal connections within the district.

3. The power of displacing the functionary in question after experience had of him ought to be vested in the hands here in question. But /And/ if the power of placing were in the same hands, the power of displacing would be likely to remain unexercised in cases in which a well grounded demand for the exercise of it had place.

4. The mode of exercising the power of displacing a Judge by the Electors of his district ought to be by secret suffrages openly delivered as in the case of an Election of the Members of the supreme legislative.
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  • Title: [1823 Feb. 16 J.B.'s Articles and Reasons]
    Description: 1823 Feb. 16

    J.B.'s Articles and Reasons

    Judiciary

    For the exercise of it a determinate day of the year ought to be fixt: and it ought to be the same day as that on which the suffrages for the Election of Members are delivered.

    Reason. If a particular day was not fixt by law for the exercise of this function, the exercise of it would then depend upon the exertion of some particular individual or individuals. But by any such exertion a man would expose himself to the ill will in the first place of the Judge in the next place of all persons to whom his continuance in the situation was particularly acceptable then in case of any injustice committed by him in favour of particular individuals, to the particular resentment of all unjustly /unduly/ favoured individuals.

    Reason why on the same day rather than on any other

    1. Saving the time of the Electors

    2. Securing for these functions the fullest attendance possible.

    To the Minister of Justice ought moreover[?] to appertain the power of placing in any other district a Judge displaced out of any district as above by the Electors

    To the Minister of Justice should moreover[?] appertain the power of displacing altogether any Judicial functionary not displaced by the Electors of his district.

    Reason 1. Otherwise he would not be in a sufficient degree responsible for the due discharge of this his function: the security of the appropriate aptitude of these subordinate functionaries would not be so [...?] as it is capable of being.
  • Title: [1823. Feb. 27. Greece. J.B's Observations]
    Description: 1823. Feb. 27.

    Greece. J.B's Observations on particular Articles

    Judiciary

    Now as to the plan I would propose for a Judiciary.

    1. The whole territory of the state, say on the present occasion Greece, I would divide into Judicial Districts: the number, of course, not at present determinable: each such Judicial district into Judicial sub-districts, for the demarcation of which, extent of territory and of population should conjunctly be taken into account.

    For the sake of simplicity and uniformity, and for a further reason that will soon be visible, the limits of these several Judicial Districts should be the same as those of the several Election Districts, by each of which, a Member is sent to the Legislative Senate. The limits of the several Judicial Sub-districts, may perhaps be the same with those of the several Election sub-districts, into which it may be convenient that the Election districts be divided, for the purpose of collecting, at so many voting offices, the several parcels of votes, which are from thence to be transferred altogether to the Election district voting office, at which the aggregate number of the votes given in that district are collected, sorted, and counted. Whether, of any of these Judicial Sub-districts, there shall be any ulterior division into sub-sub-districts, must remain to be determined by particular local considerations. For these Judicial districts, the only source of division I should employ, is - the territorial; no such source as that which has so generally been employed, and which may be termed the logical or metaphysical: a source taken from the nature of the Judicial business done: no such division, for example as that between civil and penal suits or causes, or that between civil and ecclesiastical suits or causes between commercial and non-commercial suits or causes: no such division as that under English Law, and thence under the English-bred Law of some of the Anglo-American United States, between Law cases and Equity cases. Reason. From any such principle of division, spring two great evils: one is, needless and useless addition to the number of Judicatories: the other is, in the case of this or that suit or cause, doubt and contestation, to the cognizance of which of two or more Judicatories it appertains. To this general rule, a few exceptions, but to no very considerable extent in the aggregate, will be of necessity suggested by the peculiar circumstances in which some classes of public functionaries find themselves placed.

    For
  • Title: [1823 Feb. 18 Greece J.B.'s]
    Description: 1823 Feb. 18

    Greece

    J.B.'s Articles and Reasons

    Legislative

    Sharers why many

    Add stock of local knowledge already acquired, not sufficiently great.

    The supreme legislative when the supreme executive is detached from it and the choice subject to popular election why lodged in many hands in contradistinction to a single hand or a small number of hands? Why made to constitute an exception to the rule To each function no more than a single functionary?

    Reasons in the case of a single hand.

    1. By the magnitude of the power, notwithstanding the appointed brevity of its duration, and the number /multitude/ of the persons on whom he would have to depend for the lawful continuance of it or renewal of it © by the magnitude of the power, the functionary would be tempted and at the same time enabled to give unlawful continuance to it: to render the continuance /duration/ of it in his own hands equal to that of his own life at once, or by frequent renewals to pave the way to such an ultimate result. And for this the absoluteness of the dependence of the situation /will/ of the supreme Executive on supreme and subordinates of all classes taken together would give prodigious facility. It would place at his disposal all that power which is conferred by the command over the whole mass of the matter of reward power of placing and displacing, as applied /applying/ to all lucrative Offices. For converting these one and all into instruments of his own applicable to the pupioses of his own separate and sinister interest he would thus have if not an absolute certainty, at any rate as great a probability as by the /any/ form of government could be put into the hands of a functionary so situated.

    He would be tempted and enabled /assisted/ to tread in the steps of Julius Caeser and Napoleon Bonaparte.