date

9[?] Mar 1808 L d Eldons Bill
9[?] Mar 1808

L d Eldons Bill

Letter V

§.6. Reasons

Ends of Justice

7. Delay

7. Delay. This evil, in so far as it is the work either of the Judge or of the system under which he acts, is, for so long as it lasts denial of justice. Provides chances of misdecision without number, it involves in its texture expence naturally and generally, vexation necessarily and universally. In the case of the wrongdoer, it is generally to a certain degree compensated: in the estimation of the wrongdoer by whose exertions it is purposely manufactured or purchased, it is of course compensated, and compleatly: but it is no otherwise compensated than in as far as it is productive of misdecision or undue and greater vexation on the other side. See Table of the Mischiefs of Delay, Table III.

For twenty eight out of a multitude of other shapes in which under the fee-gathering system in both kingdoms factitious delay is manufactured, manufactured under the system devised by Judges, for their own profit, and to the use of their own brotherhood, added to that of the fraternity of wrongdoers on both sides of the cause, see Table.

" Justice shall, under us, be denied to no man, sold to no man, delayed for no man. Thus promised the wicked King John, in the earliest and, to the path[?] outwards, the most sacred of our fundamental laws.

Under our present most gracious and religious sovereign, and by his correspondently religious servants and advisers, what is the sort of performance given to this promise? Delayed to all, denied to most, justice (we see) is sold, and at the extorioner's price sold, to the well-plundered yet still favoured few.
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  • Title: [6 Mar 1808 L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 6 Mar 1808

    L d Eldons Bill

    Letter V

    §.6. Reasons

    Ends of Justice

    6. Expence

    6. Expence. Of a stock of litigation, vexation, is under every System an inseparable concomitant: Under the fee-gathering system so in an indefinitely variable but always large proportion, so is expence: even under the natural system, in some proportion or other, nearly so.

    To every man to whom his time and labour are in any shape a source of profit, much more if of subsistence - that is in every country to all but comparatively a very few, the time consumed in attendances and other ways by litigation is, over and above the vexation in effect so much expence.

    The sum being given whether being received it is disbursed, or whether the receipt of it be forgone makes in this respect no difference.

    Where neither ability nor resolution to defray it are wanting, expence attached to litigation is expence (with its vexation) and nothing more. Where from the outset of the cause either are wanting, the evil changes its nature: on the plaintiff's side it is denial of justice: on the defendant's side it is misdecision to the prejudice of that side.

    If at any intervening period between the commencement and the conclusion of the cause, the burthen of the expence becomes on either side intolerable and the party sinks under it, a load of expence and that a ruinous one is thus added, in the one case to denial of justice, in the other to misdecision to the prejudice of the defendant's side: that is either to extortion, or to oppression in some other of the many shapes in which oppression, that is the power of inflicting it, is to be purchased by every one who will pay the price, of the sworn ministers of justice. See misdecision to the prejudice of the defendants side.
  • Title: [May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]
    Description: May 1807

    Scotch Reform

    Letter VI

    Letter VI

    Recapitulation & Anticipation

    4. Prevention of ultimate misdecision: viz. by entertaining Appeals complaining of misdecision on the part of the subordinate judicatures.

    5. Prevention of superabundant delay: viz. by entertaining applications complaining of superabundant delay on the part of the Judge in any of the subordinate judicatures, and [...?] despatch accordingly.

    N.B. Delay in so far as it is the necessary result of the system can no otherwise be struck off or abridged - than by an appropriate change in the system itself: the delay here spoken of i.e. that which is supposed to be produced by misconduct on the part of the Judge, and which is liable to take place under any system.

    In the character of a remedy against delay, that faculty of recurrence in the authority of the superintending judicatures can never with propriety be withholden: but, in as much as administered in the form the remedy involves an exasperation of the disease the efficacy of the indirect remedy will be incompleat and work without the addition of │ │ other remedies of an indirect nature: viz. a set of periodical returns from the several Courts whereby /shewing/ the quantity of extra delay that took place /having place/ in each suit, and every stage of each suit with the causes to which it has been referred /[...?]/ by the Judge (in whose Court it respectively took place.) See Delay and Complication Tables

    Table │ │.

    6. Periodical collection of the documents necessary to represent the state of judicature in the several subordinate Courts: viz. under heads calculated to shew in each respective suit in what respect[?] and degree it has succeeded or failed in fulfilling the several ends of justice viz. rectitude of decision (promotion of misdecision) prevention of failure of justice prevention of superabundant delay, vexation and expense.
  • Title: [28 Jan y 1808 II Appeals 1]
    Description: 28 Jan y 1808

    II Appeals

    1. [...?] not possible[?]

    4

    Nulli[?] vendimus nulli[?] negatimus[?] aut differens[?] sit[?] possessione[?]

    9 Hen. 3. c.29. A o 1225

    Under the Scottish modification, in the supreme judicatory[?], till comparatively of late years every year was divided into two equal parts, Vacation time composing one. Here was 6 calendar months of factitious delay, exposed to sale in one lump. Since /In/ the Year 1 │ │ causes lying /a convention the cause of which lies/ too far out of the reach /way/ of ready scrutiny, broke this magnificent lump into two lumps of four and two months.

    When in fixed masses of such enormous magnitude injustice is thus sold out without so much as the pretence /put upon sale not only without name but without pretence/ of a reason, occasional masses of different lengths are /were/ added to them without difficulty on any the most flimsy /flimsiest/ pretence. {The enormous /mountainous/ waste of war renders men not the more but the less jealous of all minor that is of all minor wastes.}

    Never shall justice be denied, delayed or sold says the King of England in Magna Charta /the Great Charter of Henry the 3 d/. /In/ The [...?] of /law establishing/ the market overt for the sale of factitious delay is the Magna Charta of the supreme Scottish judicatory /the Guardians /Ministers/ of Scottish justice behold their Magna Charta/, a Charter granted by themselves, to themselves, with the dishonest[?] part of the population in perpetual succession[?] in quality of co-partners, a charter which to the utmost of their power they are /have expressed themselves/ determined to maintain inviolate. On a grand occasion, and for production of stage-effect, Fiat justitia, ruat cælum, was once the motto of L d Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of all England. Fiat injustitia, ruat turru[?], is the improvement now made upon it, by the official head of Scottish justice. Perish justice, (says that Right Honourable Judge, with ten out of his fourteen younger brethren) perish justice, now and for ever, rather than that we should lose a moment of our ease. +

    + Supra, p.