date

27 May 1807 + 11 (3 Letter
27 May 1807

+ 11 (3

Letter V

I. Plan

III. J.B. Remdies

Misdecision, whether in toto or pro[?] tanto - unnecessary delay, vexation and expence - ( vexation being understood so not to include misdecision to the prejudice of the Defendant's side) - these, together with failure of justice, which, where it happens through default of the System or the Judge, is equivalent to denial of justice (which itself is equivalent to misdecision to the prejudice of the Plaintiff's side) - these may be given as the several stages in which injustice in respect of judicature - say judicial injustice, primary or of the first order - may be liable to manifest itself -

Reversal, or modification - together with prevention or correction of unnecessary delay, vexation and expence, viz. by order for dispatch, (not to speak here of other less direct but more efficient means), as also order for taking cognizance - present themselves as the direct, and only direct, howsoever of themselves insufficient, remedies applicable by a super-intending authority, to the cure of judicial injustice of the first order, as above, in these its several shapes -
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  • Title: [7 March 1807 Judicial Justice]
    Description: 7 March 1807

    Judicial Justice

    Letter V

    I. Shapes

    1. Misdecision

    Misdecision, again, may either be in toto, or pro tanto. The distinction is no frivolous one: since according as the disorder wears the one or the other face, the remedy appropriated to it bears one or the other of two denominations: disorder, misdecision in toto, remedy, reversal: disorder, misdecision pro tanto, remedy not reversal but modification.

    Misdecision in toto is in its remedy, as in its nature extremely diversified. It may be in favour of the plaintiff's side alone, it may be in favour of the Defendant's side alone. Misdecision in toto in favour of the plaintiff's side is judgment simpliciter for the plaintiff, whereas it ought to have been for the defendant: misdecision in toto in favour of the defendant, is judgment simpliciter for the defendant, whereas it ought to have been for the plaintiff.
  • Title: [7 March 1807 Judicial Justice]
    Description: 7 March 1807

    Judicial Justice

    Letter V

    I. Shapes

    I. First as to the shapes in which injustice, considered as resulting from the conduct of a Judge, is liable to manifest itself. These may be considered as corresponding to the several ends of justice, so often spoken of. So many of those ends, so many primary dictates of justice. On the part of any Judge or Court of Justice an act of injustice will be an act operating or tending to operate in repugnancy to some one or other or every one of those ends.

    1. Direct or positive end of justice - effect given to the arrangements made by the substantive branch by the law: support and effect given to the rights created and conferred by it: enforcement given to the obligations imposed by it, in correspondence with those rights: fulfilment given to the predictions delivered by it, and engagements taken by it, in correspondence with those rights and obligations.

    Modifications of judicial injustice or judiciature corresponding to this direct end of justice - 1. Misdecision; to the prejudice of the Plaintiff's side: 2. Denial of justice. The relation in the way of coincidence and distinction between these objects will be presently brought to view.

    2. Collateral ultimate or negative end of justice - avoiding to give birth to that sort of vexation which takes place, where in the endeavour real or pretended, to give fulfilment to some article of substantive law in favour of the plaintiff, by giving effect to some right demanded by him as his due, but really not his due, the correspondent obligation is imposed upon his adversary the defendant.

    Modification of injustice in judicature corresponding to this collateral ultimate end of justice, misdecision to the prejudice of the Defendant's side.

    3. Collateral incidental end or ends of justice - (likewise of the negative cast) avoiding to give birth to superabundant collateral inconvenience in its several distinguishable but intimately connected shapes - delay, vexation and expence.

    Modification or modifications of injustice in judicature, corresponding to this collateral incidental end of justice, production of superabundant delay, vexation or expence.
  • Title: [16 May 1807 Judicial Injustice]
    Description: 16 May 1807

    Judicial Injustice

    As to the last object - viz. periodical collection of returns indicative of the state of judicature in the several subordinate courts, nearly as this object is connected with the main objects, prevention of misdecision and of unnecessary delay, vexation and expence, no such entire coincidence it is evident takes place in this instance as in the two former ones. For how necessary soever it may be to the superintending judicature to know what the decisions and other proceedings of the several subordinate judicatures are, in order to prevent ultimate misdecision from taking place in their respectivity, yet the knowing what a decision is, and the taking measures for preventing it, being carried into execution in the event of its being deemed erroneous, are operations distinct enough from each other.