PRIVATE

10 Dec r 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter V

Ch.2. Utility of Scotch App

§.1. against local Influence

Ch.2. Utility of the Lords appellate jurisdiction of the Lords, in so far as exercised over the Scottish judicatories.

S.1. as a remedy against local influences.

Of the several ends of justice immediate and derivative, a list, such as I have been able to make out, has just been submitted to your Lordship.

Assuming that the appellate jurisdiction at present exercised over the Scottish judicatories is beneficial upon the whole, to the British empire taken in the aggregate, in what particular points will its utility be found to consist? a question that will not, I flatter myself, present itself to Your Lordship as altogether unworthy of an answer.

The answer, if my humble conception of the matter be correct, will be found in two of the articles of that list viz.

1. Correction or prevention of misdecision (including, so far as regards prevention, the imputation and suspicion of misdecision) in so far as it is liable to be the result of local interests and partialities. This article belongs to the list of immediate ends of justice.

2. Maintenance of the authority of the imperial legislature over that one of the three kingdoms, over that one of the two minor kingdoms, which are situated at a distance from the seat of the imperial government: maintenance of its authority over the supreme local judicatory, and thereby over the several subordinate ones.

This article belongs to the list of derivative ends of justice.