11 Oct r 1807

Lords Delegates

after Ch. │ │ Advantages

Ch. │ │ L d Hale's Plan

Another /A/ curious enough circumstance is that against this plan of the learned and venerable Judge, there stands /militates/ an objection brought forward by himself, and which, where it applies in fact /point/ is given by him /himself/ as peremptory and unanswerable.

Not only the supreme legislative power, says he, but the supreme judicial power likewise, is according to a multitude of antient precedents, vested in the hands of the whole Parliament. If then, continues he, you allow /them says he/ a judicial power an appeal to the House of Lords, at any rate you can not disallow the already established and still superior judicial power, on appeal, to the whole Parliament. But after an decree pronounce by the House of Lords, such further appeal to the whole Parliament would by the intervention of the (appeal made to and) decree antecedently pronounced by the House of Lords have been rendered nugatory. For says he, by the whole Parliament nothing can ever be done that has not received the assent of the House of Lords: and can there be any rational ground says he for expecting the assent of the House of Lords to an Act of Parliament having no other object than the removal of their own decree? No, says he, "any such appeal to the high Court of Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons ... must necessarily be fruitless; because the Lords who as part of the Parliament must have voice in that appeal, are already prejudicated by their own judgment, and anticipated by it."