31 Jan y 1805

Evidence

Ch. Engl. Summary

''.2. Justices

One point however there is in which this modification of summary procedure has been found to deviate /does deviate/ from the line of perfection, and which does belong to the present head. It is pregnant with instruction, to any eye that can endure the look at it. Here too the cause of the aberration is to be found, plainly and exclusively to be found in the baneful influence of regular /technical/ procedure.

Among the securities against falshood and mis-decision that which is afforded by the registration of the evidence has been noticed in its place. But of this operation what were the uses? One main use was the confining each subordinate judge within the scale of duty by the apprehension of the censure[?] from the superintending eye of a superior in office. In the arrangement thus proposed thus held up to view in the character of a proper one, his things were necessarily though tacitly supposed: that a system /line/ /course/ of procedure to be observed by /conformed be/ the subordinate had been chalked out for him; and that that course was a rational one, adapted to the several direct and collateral ends of justice. Unfortunately in English law neither of these conditions has ever been fulfilled. By making of laws[?] there is nothing at all to be got, at least by lawyers: by banishing as for the breach of laws, where laws are supposed to have been broken though [...?] were ever made /have as yet been made/, there is a great deal to be got, and to be got by lawyers. When guided by the light of natural justice a country gentleman /an unpaid Judge/, along with the purest intentions in the character of a Justice of peace, in execution of the same branch of the substantive law committed to his charge, had decided accordingly, entering upon paper and thus making known to all who chose to know, the grounds of his decision in respect of fact