9 Dec r 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter V

§.iv. Bonâ fide Appeals

2. The need of such appeal in the character of a security against the effect of Great interests and partialities.

Without supposing any thing unfavourable to judicial probity in the air of Edinburgh in comparison of that of London, 1 the comparative narrowness of the circle in which Judges move, 2 as well as the superior multitude of seats in the northern judicatory - 3 not to mention other circumstances less prominent and unquestionable, such as the still more deplorable uncertainty and unsteadiness of the rule of action - concurr in exhibiting the danger in question in such a magnitude, as to render the London remedy, notwithstanding the price paid for it in the shape of encrease of delay, vexation and expence, a beneficial one upon the whole.

In the character of a corrective, I should expect to find the utility of the remedy not altogether undiscernible. But in this character, beneficial that its utility must naturally be, small indeed in comparison of that which it produces in the more efficacious though unappretiable and in individual instances undiscernible character of a preventative. If, not-withstanding the security in question, in one suit out of a hundred, the decison has received a tinge from the instances of any such sinister courses, that security removed, the same mischief might not unreasonably be expected to take place in at least ten out of the hundred. At present, the tendency to misdecision being kept under by the apprehension of exposure, the effect will naturally be confined to cases that having more or less of dubiousness in their complexion, afford room for bonâ fide difference or mistake: take away this check, the efficacy of the sinister cause would have little to prevent it from extending to the clearest cases.