date

24 Dec r 1807 Scotch Reform
24 Dec r 1807

Scotch Reform

3 3

Letter V

Ch. │ │ Omission Causes

But by the influence of what cause is it, it will be asked, that the natural proportions are so strangely reversed? Answer - plainly by this - that in the minor kingdom the state of judicature falls in so great a degree short of that degree of matchless perfection which by the universal consent of all nations, at least of all Englishmen, who give more credit to the assurances of Judge Blackstone than to their own experience, it has attained in England.

Therefore, my Lord, move boldly for a return of │ │

and fear not /you need not be apprehensive of not witnessing/ a triumphant result.

But in the wording of this motion two rocks must be observed with the most religious care.

One is in calling for Appeals to avoid all mention of those which in the technical language happen to have received the name of Writs of Error. In Scotland all Appeals presented to the House of Lords are called Appeals: In England the only Appeals on which that denomination is in technical language bestowed are those which are presented from the particular species of Courts called Courts of Equity, or from those others, of which happily there will be no need to take notice, inasmuch as the paramount Judicature to which they are presented is not that of the House of Lords.
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  • Title: [24 Dec r 1807 Scotch Reform]
    Description: 24 Dec r 1807

    Scotch Reform

    (2)

    Letter V

    Ch.│ │ Omission Cause

    By the creation of the proposed Chamber of Review, the good purposes on both sides will be happily accomplished. On the one part friends will be provided for influence extended, and the regulation gained by staving off denial of justice, in appearance at least, and for a time, from hanging any longer over the House of Lords, so serious a reproach as that of a compleat and inexorable denial of justice.

    To effect this improvement in the state of Scottish judicature, it will be absolutely necessary to represent the present state of it in colours by no means to its advantage: and for this purpose to bring particularly forward those features of disadvantage which are calculated to make the strongest impression on Parliament and in particular, on the House of Lords.

    But of all its features the most promising in this view is the enormity and continual encrease of the demand made upon the House of Lords for its time by the Appeals from the Court of Session presented to that Most Honourable House.

    By bringing this object into view both objects will be compassed at once. Keeping to the word Appeals, it will be matter of intuition - matter out of the reach of dispute, that by the Scotch Appeals the demand made on the House for its time is in a[?] much considerably degree greater than that made by the English Appeals. Exclusive of all such considerations of time, it will moreover - and on ground equally out of the reach of dispute, that the number of Appeals presented to the House of Lords, from the one judicatory of the lesser and least populous, is much greater than the number presented to the same supreme judicatory from the largest and most populous of the three kingdoms.
  • Title: [24 Dec r 1807 Scotch Reform]
    Description: 24 Dec r 1807

    Scotch Reform

    4[?]

    Letter V

    Ch. │ │ Omission Causes

    Were the ends of justice, and its subserviency to those ends the objects really in view, the true criterion and index of judicature absolutely considered so far as Appeals are concerned - the number presented respectively from the supreme local judicatory: relatively and comparatively considered it would be the numbers respectively presented from the several co-ordinate local judicatories in the three kingdoms: whether, after passing from their respective subordinate judicatories, the supreme judicatory to which the Appeals respectively went, even of this or that description - whether to the House of Lord for example or to the King, would to this point make no material difference.

    But the ends pursued by our most venerable and justly predominant order never have been, nor in the nature of the case could have been, the ends of justice, nor could those ends have ever been the objects of our attention for any other purpose than that of enabling ourselves to steer as clear and wide of them as possible.

    By bringing to view the real number of Appeals presented from the English Courts in question we not only should not promote any of the laudable ends and designs we have in view, but we should counteract in the strongest and even frustrate them in the compleatest degree imaginable. For so it is, that it would turn out, not only that the Appeals from the English Court are more numerous than the Appeals from the Scotch Courts; but that the excess is beyond all proportion greater than what would be in proportion to the difference in point of population between the two kingdoms.
  • Title: [20 May 1807 A3 Letter V]
    Description: 20 May 1807

    A3

    Letter V

    VIII. Appeal list mutilated

    I. Deficiencies

    But the English part of the account ( let alone the Irish) presents a very different picture. Upon the same level with the one Court at Edinburgh (taking the Inner House of the Court of Session for that one Court) stand in London no fewer than four Courts in Westminster Hall alone: viz. the Chancery, the King's Bench (in its capacity of a Court of original or primary jurisdiction) the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer.

    In the case of the Scotch Appeals whether you call for the Appeals to the House of Lords, meaning from Scotland, or for the Appeals from Scotland simply, it makes no difference: you have one and the same list in both cases.

    Very different is the case with the English Appeals. Call for the Appeals to the House of Lords from Westminster Hall, you get the Appeals called Appeals presented to the House of Lords, and moreover, unless you suffer things to be hidden from you by names, You get the Appeals called Writs of Error, returnable, (as the word now is) to the same supreme seat of appellate judicature.

    Call for the Appeals from the four Westminster Hall Courts above mentioned, you get it is true the same Appeals as those mentioned in the last sentence. But moreover along with these you get the cloud of others brought to view under the last head. You get the Appeals presented under the name of Writs of Error, to the three intermediate Courts of appellate jurisdiction, already depicted under the aforesaid last head of the English Courts of Review.