date

[168-191v] July 1806 Evidence
[168-191v]

July 1806

Evidence Scotch Reform

Ref[...?]

Resolution 1.

To this article I should not expect to hear any objection, unless it be on the score of expence. More Courts whould require or be supposed to require more officers, in every case except where if there be any such case, the officers of any particular description are already in the existing single Court in a number as great as that of the proposed Courts.

Not only so, but whatever additional number of Courts were to be established, each such new Court, would if the number of Judges placed in it were greater than one, be probably looked upon as requiring a Precedent: and to such superior in rank some superiority in salary - and thence some additional salary would naturally be looked upon as necessary.

Report says that this plan was suggested by one of the present Members: if this be so, he would naturally on this occasion not be unremembered.

I number this as an objection - not that ought to prevail but as one that will naturally enough be made, and ought therefore to be considered /on that account ought not to pass unheeded/.
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    Lett Lawyers adverse

    The substitution of salary to fees, is a practice so solidly grounded in principle, and so compleatly sanctioned by recent and universally approved precedents, that were this /expensive as it is were the expence/ the only difficulty neither opposition nor dissatisfaction could consistently be apprehended: but though this were surmounted, a great part of the opposing force remains unconquered, and perhaps unconquerable.

    Unprecedented as it is, strange as accordingly it may well appear to our English eye, in Scotland, the reform which has the honour of Your Lordship's patronage, originated in /I perceive [...?] law-learned, in/ a judicial brain: in substance I see it proposed, and not proposed only but well advocated by the late Lord [...?], not one of the Judges of the Court of Session, in a pamphlet printed so long ago as in 1789. Even now, if I am rightly informed, it has for its prime [...?] and draughtsman another of the Judges of that locally [...?] as well as superior supreme Court.

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    Ch. │ │ Device the │ │ th Bandying the suit /cause/ from Court to Court.

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