date

March 1808 Letter V §.6. Ends
March 1808

Letter V

§.6. Ends of Justice

Causes (immediate) of

failure of justice

Note

Causes (immediate causes) of failure of justice, or rather, of non-fulfilment of the ordinances of the substantive branch of law in relation to this or that portion of the field of law.

If misdecision be understood as one of the causes by which failure of justice may have been produced, then the term failure of justice may be considered as covering in its whole extent the case here meant to be designated.

If the expression failure of justice be considered as confined to the cases where no decision has been pronounced, and thus as not comprehending the cases in which the prejudice done to the plaintiff's side of the suit has misdecision for its cause, then no such comparatively short appellative as that of failure of justice can here be employed; but the longer and more composite appellation must be employed; but the longer and more composite appellation must be employed instead of it.

So great is the embarrassment attendant on the necessity of employing a sentence instead of a word, and so great the convenience of employing appellations in familiar use in preference to new ones, that after the notice thus given the well-known term failure of justice will be employed in that more extensive sense in which misdecision is composed in the number of the causes by which it is liable to be produced.
Similar Items
  • Title: [17 March 1808 Letter V §.6]
    Description: 17 March 1808

    Letter V

    §.6. Reasons

    Ends of Justice

    II. Non-Decision Causes

    II. Causes of Non-Decision in the case in which it operates to the prejudice of the Plff's side as a cause of failure of justice.

    To operate in this way, and that to a certainty just as misdecision to the prejudice of the Plff's side would do, the duration of the negative act thus designated must be, by the supposition, perpetual: otherwise the result of it is but delay: in which case though effects tantamount to those of misdecision, effects in consideration of which the party may be said to have lost his cause, are among the probable, and frequently they are not among the certain consequences. See Table │ │ Mischiefs of Delay.

    This is among the cases in which the failure of justice is seen the most distinctly to come under the description of a denial of justice: the failure having so decidedly for its cause a misconduct on the part of the Judge.

    By the term Non-decision the existence of a demand, i.e. of some act or other of the number of those by which a suit is understood to have been commenced, seems, by necessary implication, to be supposed.

    In this case, to the two portions of incidental mischief which in the shape of vexation and expence would, in case of mis-decision, have operated in aggravation of the principal evil, is to be added a further lot of vexation the length of which has for its initial point the moment at which decision {after having been} pronounced ought to have been {carried into effect} and for its final point the moment which gave death to hope.
  • Title: [16 March 1808 Letter V continued]
    Description: 16 March 1808

    Letter V

    continued

    Causes (immediate)

    of failure of justice

    1. Misdecision: 2. Non-decision: 3. Non-demand. 4. Desistment. 5. Non-Justiciability on the part of the Defendant. Taken in the order of obviousness, such are the occurrences which present themselves as the causes to which, in the character of immediate causes, failure of justice as often as it has place to them - i.e. to some or more of them - may in each instance be ascribed.

    By the consideration of time, (were that the only one) a different order might perhaps be suggested: as, for instance, 1. Non-justiciability of the Defendant: 2. Non-demand: 3. Desistment: 4. Non-decision: 5. Mis-decision.

    On the present occasion the former of these two different orders seems best adapted to the purpose of explanation.
  • Title: [26 March 1808 Letter V §.6]
    Description: 26 March 1808

    Letter V

    §.6. Reasons

    Ends of Justice

    Non-notoriety of the Law, considered as a cause of misdecision to the prejudice of either side, or of Non-demand in the case where Non-demand is a cause of failure of justice.