date

PRIVATE 5[?] June 1807 Letter
PRIVATE

5[?] June 1807

Letter V

v. No Appeals against Interlocut

v. Proposed prohibition of Appeals against Interlocutors - a bad remedy

I come now to the second of these bad remedies against delay - of these bad expedients for saving the sum of time to the House of Lords - of these imaginary compensations for the delays attendant in Scotland on the proposed Chamber of Review - prohibition of Appeals to the Lords against interlocutors - interlocutory judgments pronounced by the Court of Session.

At the outset of this letter I stated what appeared to me the only ostensible ground on which such an arrangement could have been proposed: no injury done by misdecision no injury done untill the judgment has been final.

On the same occasion I stated what appeared to me a radical objection /contrare[?] objection/ to any arrangement built upon such ground: viz. that between the class of Appeals proposed to be prohibited and the class of Appeals proposed to be still permitted no time of separation has been drawn, has been proposed to be drawn, or is likely to be drawn, so that here is an arrangement of which compleat uncertainty, interminable litigation, and incalculable mischief is the certain consequence.
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    But appeals against interlocutors are a great grievance. My Lord, I dare believe it. Appeals from Scotland are multitudinous: and a great part of them are appeals against interlocutors. It is natural they should be. In addition to the malâ fides delay producible by appeals against final judgments comes the delay produced by interlocutors. I dare say it does. But against delay, Your Lordship has seen the remedy, the only remedy: and this prohibition of appeals against interlocutors is not that remedy.
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    With submission, my Lord, it strikes me that before the door of the House was proposed to be thus inexorably shut against all Appeals from Interlocutors it might not have been labour altogether misspent, to enquire into the proportion between the number of Appeals complaining of Interlocutors alone, and the number of Appeals complaining of final judgments.

    An apprehension strikes me lest, upon a search of that kind it might here and there be matter of some difficulty to find an Appeal to the House of Lords complaining of any thing else besides an Interlocutor: and thereupon, supposing the proposed arrangement passed into a law, to find the jurisdiction which the House of Lords would continue to exercise over that one, the northernmost, of his Majesty's three kingdoms.

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