16 Jan y 1808

Scotch Reform

Elucidation to Tables IX, X, XI concluded

(1) [145] So far as concerns the malâ fide Appeals, (which till the time comes for hearing, at which conjecture they are either withdrawn or dismissed commonly without being argued, can not be distinguished from the bonâ fide Appeals) the cause of this arrear may be seen in the influence of the fee-gathering system.

By the fee-gathering System, understand that system which, to the remuneration attached to offices concerned in the administration of justice, gives the Shape of fees: viz. sum of money, the aggregate of which rises and falls along with the number of suits, and the number of incidents taking place in each suit.

The multitude of malâ fide Appeals is produced b the profit which the Appellant finds it in his power to make, by subjecting the Respondent to the ulterior load of delay expence and vexation attached to this ulterior stage: and forasmuch as the amount fees has all along risen and fallen with the multitude of Appeals malâ fide as well as bonâ fide ones it has thus been the interest of persons in high office, Judges and others, to render by apt encouragement the multitude of these acts of iniquity as great as possible.

This encouragement consisted in the giving to the operation of Appeal, the effect of staging execution on the decision appealed from. By this means, where in contemplation of the advantage to be reaped from such delay, a man had got possession of property, to which he had no right, whatsoever might be the nature and amount of such advantage was secured to him, for such length of time as the delay, could be made to last, See Ulterior Results, art. 6.