9 June 1807

C1

Letter V

No Appeals

II. Irrep. Injury

II. Delay. - It is in the character of a source of delay - endless and irremedial delay - capable of having, to the prejudice of the plaintiff's side the effect of a final judgment on the main question the mischief threatened by the proposed arrangement seems most obvious and incontestable.

In the case of the malâ fide defendant, the postponement or even the mere negation, (whether produced by or without interlocutors) of a final judgment in favour of the plaintiff to whom it is due may have the effect of a final judgment in favour of the other side. In the sense, in situation of defendant whatever a man has in his hands remains there, so long as nothing, by which it can be taken of out them is done. And, supposing unjust partiality on the part of the Judge, such partiality might in this way find its gratificaion without risk of legal, or perhaps even moral, censure.

An interlocutor is pronounced, the only mischief of which, and perhaps the only end in view in it consists in delay. The prohibition of Appeals against Interlocutors, was it intended to operate as a remedy against delay? Here then as we have a remedy, consisting in the denial of all remedy.

But, delay, while it lasts, is denial of justice: and, forasmuch as the duration of the delay, thus producible without remedy is without limit, so is the denial of justice.

Will it be said that appeal against delay from the Court of Session to the House of Lords is appeal from the frying-pan to the fire! Whatsoever it may be at present, it is not proposed even by Your Lordship's learned Reformer, that the fire of the Lords should for ever be an everlasting one. But such might be the case with the torment if the frying pan in the Court of Session were the proposed arrangement to take place.