6 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Evils causes

4th order

3 Non-notoriety

3. Non-notoriety of the law bearing on the point in question: - non notoriety - viz with reference to the judge.

The judge for want of being apprized of the existence of the law by which a decision in favour of the party in question demandant or defendant, on the point /in the cause/ in question has been prescribed, gives a decision in favour of the other side, which decision is accordingly a wrongful one.

I. Natural causes

1. Want of appropriate knowledge and intelligence on the part of the judge: see judicial establishment as above.

2. Intricacy of the law so far as it is natural. See infrà - causes of the 5th order intricacy.

II. Factitious causes negative

1. Non-promulgation. Want of sufficiently efficacious arrangements taken by the legislator for the making the existing laws sufficiently known to each individual bound or favoured /served/ by them, at the very time at which he is called upon to act in such a way as to render the service intended to be rendered by him (including the negative service of abstaining from an offence of any kind) or receive the service intended to be rendered to him (with or without demand) and received by him: - (including the right intended to be conferred on him. N.B. The judge is an individual whose duty it has been made /on whom the obligation has been imposed/ of rendering on each occasion to each demandant the service claimed /demanded/ by him, if due: to refuse to render it if undue.

2. Non-digestion. When the body /mass/ of the law has been extended to a certain bulk, it requires to be digested into some convenient method or order, by the help of which a man may on each occasion be enabled / -------/ in time to know the existence and possess his mind of the tone and purport of the particular article by which on such an occasion his conduct is to be governed. Where such assistance is wanting, the article in question, although promulgated along with the rest may on the occasion in question as effectually unknown as if it had not ever been promulgated.