12 Oct r 1807

Lords Delegates

After Ch. ││ Hale's Plan

Ch. ││ Hale's Objections

As to the case of a supreme judicatory /judicial power/, independent of the supreme legislative and by a system of unconfirmable decisions, capable of frustrating its laws, doubtless /no doubt but/, supposing it /that, supposing the capacity running into not/ realized, it is an inconsistent state of things. Under every government, the will of the supreme legislative power, is the actual, and assumed proper, standard of rectitude. The use and the only use /The express and indubitable duty/ of the supreme judicial power - of the judicial power in all its branches is to maintain the conduct of all men /the whole community/, in their character of subjects a constant conformity to this standard.

In a pure monarchy it would be a solecism /a plain inconsistency/, if the supreme legislative power being in the hands of the monarch, the supreme judicial were not there likewise /in the same hands/: a solecism, and /but/ one which in such[?] a state of things is but little in danger of being realized. Suppose under a monarch a judicial power ultimately independent of his will, there the case is that this the impure legislature is not in him alone, but in a certain manner shared between him and the possessor or possessors of the judicial.

In France the Parliaments also claimed[?], though unofficially a sort of supreme judicial power independent of the King to whom they did contest the supreme legislature, not only [...?], but by the power of substituting representations to registration, not only claimed, but exercised /for a time exercised/, though with the rod all the while over their heads, a negative upon his laws.