date

PRIVATE 27 Feb y 1807 A 1
PRIVATE

27 Feb y 1807

A 1 +

Scotch Reform (2

Letter

Letter V

Resolut. 10.11.12.13.14

Resolutions 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 form one group of connected arrangement: the five next ensuing, 10 th, 11, 12, 13, and 14 form another such group.

Of these five Resolutions, the 10 th has for its professed object the abbreviation of the course pursued on the occasion of the removal of a cause from a lower Court to a higher: the 11 th, 12 th, 13 th and 14 th have for their principal object the ridding the House of Lords of a portion of the mass of causes at present brought into that supreme Court of appellate Judicature from Scotland, and by that means easing the suitors of that one as well as of the two other of the three kingdoms of a proportionate part of the burthen in the shape of delay with which they are at present loaded, by the insufficiency of the quantity of time capable of being applied by that branch of the sovereign body to the purpose of such its appellate judicature.
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  • Title: [27 Feb y 1807 (4 Letter V]
    Description: 27 Feb y 1807

    (4

    Letter V

    Resolut. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

    In respect of these five provisions taken together, such my Lord in few words, such I must confess is the point of view in which they have presented themselves to my eye.

    1. That as to Resolution 10 th substituting, or professing to substitute, Appeal to Advocation and Suspension, so far is it from being likely to contribute in any considerable degree to its professed end, defalcation from delay, that it leaves the mischief in by far the most extensive and formidable quarter of it exempt from all disturbance. The operation of it is confined, as if with tender sollicitude, to bonâ fide causes, having malâ fide suitors, on both sides of the cause in the undisturbed possession of whatever advantage it finds them in possession of.

    2. That as to Resolution the 14 th being the provision which concerns costs, whereas the nature of things, affords against delay a remedy striking at the root of the evil, applying the absolute quantity as effectually as to the relative, and to suits and suitors of every description, the remedy thus employed is one that goes no further than pruning the evil, leaving the greater part of it untouched, viz: that part which has for its authors the malâ fide class of suitors.

    3. That as to Resolutions the 11 th and 12 th, interposing in every case between the supreme local and the supreme imperial judicature an additional local degree under the name of a Court of Review, its tendency to reduce the relative quantity of delay exclusively aimed at is not so strong as would have been the tendency of that unemployed remedy by which whatever reduction had been effected would have been absolute as well as relative.
  • Title: [27 Feb y 1807 (5 Letter V]
    Description: 27 Feb y 1807

    (5

    Letter V

    Resolut. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

    4 th. That as to Resolution 13 th, inhibiting Appeals to the House of Lords from interlocutory judgments, not excepting those from the Chamber of Review, the inhibition it imparts is inconsistent with the very principle of appeal, and can not be defended on any other ground than that the supreme appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords is unnecessary in toto, as well in its application to final judgments as in its application to interlocutory ones:- for that the distinction between an interlocutory and a final judgment is not in its nature so fixed and determinate, but that the effect of a final judgment may be given to an interlocutory one.
  • Title: [27 Feb r 1807 (3 Letter V]
    Description: 27 Feb r 1807

    (3

    Letter V

    Resolut 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

    These four (11 th, 12 th, 13 th, 14 th) have not so much as for their professed object the abridgment of the aggregate mass quantity of delay absolutely considered: but only the relative quantity, viz: so much of the total quantity of time as is consumed while the causes in question continue in that highest Court: and such in that quarter and so notorious is the urgency of the pressure, that for the benefit of what defalcation may thus be made from this relative quantity, it seems understood that an addition made to the absolute quantity might be made without paying too high a price.

    Even in profession these four Resolutions can not therefore be considered as aiming at the prevention of unnecessary delay and thereby ministering to that one of the ends of justice. If it be asked to which of those ends it is or to which of them it professes to be directed, prevention of misdecision is manifestly the only one that in this view can be named.

    So material is this distinction, and so strictly are the aims of the learned Reformer confined to the abridgment of delay, in the relative sense of delay, that in Resolution the 14 th in which costs are proposed as an instrument for cutting short the number of frivolous and vexatious appeals, the application of the intrument such as it is is not proposed to extend beyond that portion of the aggregate mass of causes of which that supreme Court has found itself the receptacle.