JB_092_047.xml

Title: [17 July 1807 Scotch Reform]

Description: 17 July 1807

Scotch Reform

(3) 20

2 o

Letter V

Ch.3. Bonâ fide Appeals

Compared with that of the Court of Exchequer, the business of the Court of Session, undivided as it is as yet, is beyond comparison of more considerable importance: compared with that of the same Court of Exchequer, the business of each Section of the Court of Session when there are three of them, is still in a high degree of more considerable importance. A vacancy has taken place in the office of President of the existing Court of Session or in the office of President of one of the three future contingent sections of it. For the filling up of this vacancy the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer having been, by his Majesty's wisdom, deemed the fittest person has accordingly, by his Majesty's power, been appointed. {all this as orthodox as if the pen inherited from Blackstone's desk had written it.} If not the Lord Chief Baron for the time being, then some person, in comparison with whom the Lord Chief Baron is less fit: if the Lord Chief Baron, then the Lord Chief Baron himself becomes a President of the Court of Session, or a President of a Section of the Court of Session, in comparison of whom relation being had with reference to the business of the Court or section of the Court of Session, his successor in the Lord Chief Baronship is less fit: in either case what is the effect of the arrangement: that the decision of the learned person most fit is subjected to reversal by one who is less so. If in point of superior chance of rectitude nothing were got by the change, that surely would be sufficient; but, rate it as low as you will, here is a something that is lost by it.

JB_168_177v.xml

Title: [[168-177v] 3 January 1807 Evidence]

Description: [168-177v]

3 January 1807

Evidence

Supposing or not supposing the number of anomalous Lords in the Scottish state, (I was thinking of the Lord Justice Clerk, the Lord Advocate and the Lord Lion) to be augmented by the addition of a Lord [...?], there would remain /be/ either the [...?] such existing Lords for whom in the supposition of the [...?] of natural Prudence[?] to technical[?] in the Sheriffs Court as [...?] has been done in the Small Bill Courts, occupation would be to be found.

For my plan (it is with difficulty that I can prevail upon myself for saving of perpetually [...?] circumlocutions that I can prevail upon myself thus to obtrude on [...?] [...?] upon Your Lordship's motice upon my plan /this plan of mine/ there would be nothing for learned[?] Lords to do but to hear causes coming /brought/ before them in the way of Appeal. For this purpose instead of the three Chambers proposed by the already authoritative received[?] plan sitting to hear causes in the first instance with the addition of a Chamber of Review, proposd to be made up occasionally out of the same learned materials, there would be 14 or 15 Chambers with a Lord and but one Lord, a Judge and but one Judge in each and each of them consisting a Chamber of Review and nothing else but a Chamber of Review. Here then would be the principle /the effect of the grand/ - the principle of competition tried upon a much larger scale than that proposed: saving of delay, so far as constituted by the three[?] occupied[?] by the Judges themselves in performing these operations (such of them as the faculty of thought is employed in ) and tendency[?] about them, the branch of [...?] /moreover/ [...?] to a still higher degree of perfection.

JB_092_046.xml

Title: [17 July 1807 Scotch Reform]

Description: 17 July 1807

Scotch Reform

(2) 19

2 o

Letter V

Ch.3. Bonâ fide Appeals

§. Review Chamber not better than Session

1. Is it on the score of the number of seats? The supreme judicature, the House of Lords excepted, in which such simplicity is impossible, Reason and Experience if the minute I have ventured to take of their judgment be correct, join in the decision in favour of number one: what in the character of an argumentum ad hominum[?] is much stronger in the learned Reformer's own plan the present number 15 is objected to as excessive, and as the trisection of that number is preferred to the bisection of it, not only 8 or 7 are preferred to 15, but 5 to 8 or 7.

2. Is it on the score of appropriate learning and practice as presumed from experience? Is it of the essence of the plan to committ the power of reversing or modifying a decision pronounced by those whose quantum of appropriate experience and practice stands at the highest pitch to those whose quantum of those endowments stands at some inferior pitch.

The Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, (Bill p. 1o.[?]) has been conversant throughout the whole of his judicial life with the business of the Court of Exchequer. From this Court the practice of which is so perfectly familiar to him he is to pay occasional visits to another Court for the purpose of pronouncing whether a branch of jurisdiction with which at his first visit he has no acquaintance at all, and on each successive visit less than any of his Colleagues, has been rightly exercised by those whose experience in it is so much greater than his own.