091-005.xml

Title: [12 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence]

Description: 12 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform /Evidence/

To L d Grenville

Letter 2?

L d G's: its Deficience

Superseded

Thus much as to Your Lordship's personal share in the business: thus much as to intention and every thing of that sort.

As to probable effects - if the object be to reduce /lessen/ the number /frequency/ of instances of misdecision and failure of justice - to reduce the generation /aggregate mass/ of delay, vexation and expence to the question what does it presume to do in subserviency to those ends - my answer is with the [...?] of an article, something, as far as it goes: but in improvision[?] of what might be done, and ought to be done, extremely little.

 More[?] in[?] further on

I will just state some of the most prominent abuses /take the liberty of stating to your lordship what be //in// [...?] of the matter present/: themselves[?] [...?] and then beg of Your Lordship to consider what it is if any thing that it undertakes to do for the remedying[?] of those abuses.

1. Interest which the Judges have at present in the preservation and [...?] of delay vexation and expence

2. Lord Ordinary's office in [...?]

3. In particular practice in regard to Representations in that office. Pillage without [...?], by receiving Representations without ends.

4. Written Pleadings - without worth[?], shape or ends.

JB_094_133.xml

Title: [23[?] Dec r 1806 D 1[?] + Scotch]

Description: 23[?] Dec r 1806

D 1[?] +

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

Letter 4

Resolut. 6

Jury

Resolution 6 th. For trial of facts, Jury at the instance of either party, or by order of the Court, except as hereafter to be excepted.

Waving /Turning a deaf ear to/ all prepossesions, permitt me, my Lord, to improve /confront/ this provision at once, with the condition of Scotch procedure in other respects, and with the ends of justice.

An important change proposed: to which of the ends of justice is it expected to be subservient?

To the elimination of delay, vexation, and expence? My Lord, it adds to them: yes by the whole amounnt it is an addition made to that mass of collateral in convenience. A little further on, Your Lordship will see if it be not so.

To the prevention of failure of justice? My Lord, its [...?] will produce failure of justice. In no /an/ instance will it prevent that evil: as often as by means /force/ of the delay, vexation and expence a plaintiff, that is he who should have been a plaintiff is either disabled or deterred from seeking justice, failure of justice is the consequence: and as often as by the delay, necessary evidence, or the matter of wealth in the character of the matter of satisfaction perishes.

To the prevention of misdecision? /Here a distinction is to be made./ Here the effects of the change are of a mixt nature: I will endeavour to /disentangle/ present them separate.

Is there common sense in supposing /will any man be found to contend/ that a set of men who in the drawing of conclusions from evidence have had no other experience than what the private circle of a family affords will be found better qualified for the task, than a set of men who upon the most variegated pattern[?] and the most extensive scale have I[?] made it the business of their laws[?]. Experience /Practice/ which is so much in all other arts, is it less than nothing in judicature?

JB_082_052.xml

Title: [9[?] Mar 1808 L d Eldons Bill]

Description: 9[?] Mar 1808

L d Eldons Bill

Letter V

§.6. Reasons

Ends of Justice

7. Delay

7. Delay. This evil, in so far as it is the work either of the Judge or of the system under which he acts, is, for so long as it lasts denial of justice. Provides chances of misdecision without number, it involves in its texture expence naturally and generally, vexation necessarily and universally. In the case of the wrongdoer, it is generally to a certain degree compensated: in the estimation of the wrongdoer by whose exertions it is purposely manufactured or purchased, it is of course compensated, and compleatly: but it is no otherwise compensated than in as far as it is productive of misdecision or undue and greater vexation on the other side. See Table of the Mischiefs of Delay, Table III.

For twenty eight out of a multitude of other shapes in which under the fee-gathering system in both kingdoms factitious delay is manufactured, manufactured under the system devised by Judges, for their own profit, and to the use of their own brotherhood, added to that of the fraternity of wrongdoers on both sides of the cause, see Table.

" Justice shall, under us, be denied to no man, sold to no man, delayed for no man. Thus promised the wicked King John, in the earliest and, to the path[?] outwards, the most sacred of our fundamental laws.

Under our present most gracious and religious sovereign, and by his correspondently religious servants and advisers, what is the sort of performance given to this promise? Delayed to all, denied to most, justice (we see) is sold, and at the extorioner's price sold, to the well-plundered yet still favoured few.