1821. April 18.

First Lines

Procedure

I. Law

1. Non-existence

Main evil incident to judicial procedure - misdecision: arrangements for the

avoidance of it.

Causes by which this evil /Misdecision/ is liable to be produced - /enter by the/

1. Non-existence of any portion of law applicable to the /case or by the/

2. Misinterpretation of some /this or that/ portion of law applicable to the case.

3 In the first case /former of these cases/ if any decision at all - if any decision

to any other effect than that of the rejection of the claim be pronounced by the

judge, misdecision is an appellation which, with unquestionable propriety, may be

applied to it. For, in this case, by the supposition, there is no ground for it. In

this case, are all decisions whatsoever, insofar as they have for their pretended

ground the sort of non-entity called common or unwritten law: a spurious ground

which, by the supposition, is not the work of the legislator - is not the work of any

person having authority to make law, or so much as claiming authority to make law, -

but in so far as it is any thing - in so far as it is the work of any person - is the

work of the judge by whom, on this fabricated ground, the decision is pronounced - of

the judge, who, in the very act of making it, and in the midst of his confessions

that he has no right to make /authority for making/ law, gives to it the name of law

and pretends /pretending/ to have found it ready made: giving thus the name and

effect of law to the offspring /work and product/ of his own individual will

fashioned of course according to his own conception of his own interests.