date

16 May 1807 Judicial Injustice
16 May 1807

Judicial Injustice

Distinct as this object is from that of prevention of misdecision and delay in the instance of each individual suit taken separately, still more determinate and conspicuous is the distinction when applied to the aggregate mass of suits instituted within a given portion of time.

In the case of the decision pronounced on any point in any given individual suit, supposing the decision erroneous, ultimate misdecision on that same point can not be prevented, the decision so assumed to be erroneous cannot be prevented from taking effect, unless it be known: from whatsoever superordinate authority the error receives its correction, it cannot be corrected by any person or persons without their knowing what it is.

But taking in the aggregate the whole number of judicial decisions pronounced in the several subordinate Courts within a given length of time what may very easily, and in truth much too easily happen, is - that, while in the instance of some suit's parcel of that mass the decisions pronounced in them are known, and being so known a smaller portion of them being deemed erroneous receive correction accordingly - in such sort that in these instances though the decision pronounced in the first instance fell under the case of misdecision, ultimate misdecision was in that instance prevented from taking place - at the same time in the instance of other suits composing another parcel and perhaps much the larger parcel of that aggregate mass, the decisions pronounced remain, on the part of the superintending authority altogether unknown: whence it follows that in that parcel of the aggregate mass, in whatsoever and in how many soever instances it may have happened that misdecision took place, in all those instances the error has remained uncorrected.
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