date

1823. Feb y. 27. Greece. J.B's Observations
1823. Feb y. 27.

Greece. J.B's Observations on particular Articles

Judiciary

The boundaries, and thence the contents, of the several fields of Jurisdiction being thus settled, now as to the efficient causes of placement and displacement - of location and dislocation - as well as the number of the functionaries, by whom the Judicial Situations in those several fields of Jurisdiction shall be occupied.

1. As to number. In each Judicatory one Judge and no more. Reason 1st. Responsibility thus alone entire: not fractionalized and thus dissipated, appropriate moral aptitude thus maximized. Reason 2d. expence minimized. In England, there are single seated Judicatories, there are four seated Judicatories, and there are many seated Judicatories. Those in which, all circumstances taken together, the business is regarded as being of the highest importance, are of the single-seated class. Where there have been and are two Judicatories of concurrent jurisdiction, one a single-seated Judicatory, the Chancery - the other a four-seated Judicatory, the Court of Exchequer - the single-seated Judicatory, notwithstanding the two or three stages of appeal crowded into it, has at all times received much more business than the four-seated one, the Court of Exchequer. The Judicatory in which, at all times, the greatest liberties have been taken with the most obvious and indisputable rules of Justice, is that of the twelve great Judges, composed of the population of the three great Westminster Hall Courts. Not one of these Functionaries would, in any single-seated Judicatory, have dared to deliver any such decisions as are so many of those in which all have joined, screened from the public eye by concealment, silence, and the delusive trappings with which he and his associates are bedecked. In SCotland, when there were fifteen of themsitting together in the highest Judicatory, it was still worse. In a word, the probability of good Judicature is everywhere not directly, but inversely, as the number of the Judges. Few moral rules have ever received so full a proof from experience.

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    Description: 1823. Feb y. 27.

    Greece. J.B's Observations on particular Articles.

    Judiciary

    In each Judicatory, efficient cause of location, the choice made, and will declared, by the Minister of Justice. Efficient cause of dislocation, votes to that effect by the majority of the Electors appertaining to the Judicial district or sub-district as above, as the case may be. This, without cause necessarily assigned. The Electors being on each day after giving their votes on the occasion of the election of a Representative in the Legislative Assembly, called upon to give their votes for or against the existing Judge, but not in favour of any other person in the character of a Candidate for that same situation. In case of a majority for displacement, obligation on the Minister of Justice to place another individual in that same Judicatory, but with power to place in any other Judicatory the so displaced Judge. On the part of the Electors, No specific assigned cause for such displacement need be made necessary, but in the nature of the case no proposition to that effect could ever be made with any prospect of success without assigned causes in abundance. Power to the Minister of Justice to propose to any Judge at any time, and accept his resignation, and upon refusal or silence to displace him, assigning or not assigning a specificcause or causes. Power to the so displaced Judge to stand forth in public for the vindication of his character, and to contest the existence or the sufficiency, or both, of any causes so assigned. On this head some provisions of detail would be found requisite.

    Reasons why the power of location should, in regard to all these Judicatories, be in the hand of a single person, the Minister of Justice: 1. the object of the judicial system taken in the aggregate being to give and secure execution and effect to the whole body of the Law all over the territory of the state taken in the aggregate, one main business of the Minister of Justice will be, according to the measure of his ability, to secure consistency and symmetry in the plan and mode according to which such execution and effect is given or professed to be given in every such field of Jurisdiction throughout the state.

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