1818 May 12

Parl. Reform Bill

Text

VIII Penal Securities

Procedure

Note continued

3

{ For illustration of the impracticability take the supposed provision following If,

in consequence of the offence, a fresh Election shall have taken place, the offender

shall in case of criminal consciousness and intention stand chargeable ( ) with the whole of the expences attendant on such fresh Election: in case

of culpable heedlessness, with the whole or a part more or less considerable, at the

discretion of the Jury according to the enormity of the heedlessness and the state of

his pecuniary circumstances, the money to be sued for in any one of the Common Law

Westminster Hall Courts; by action of assumption[?] brought by the Clerk of the Peace

for the County in which the District Election Office is situated: Money for the Costs

shall by the order of Justices be advanced to him out of the County Rates, the money

recovered shall in due proportions be distributed among the persons by whom the

advances were made.}

{ Where, for disbursement, loss or injury, satisfaction, at the expences of the

author is requisite to be provided, it may be easy enough, by copying or imitating

precedents to provide on that score a shew of justice the appearance of justice: but

the sum in question must be considerable indeed, if by the stamp duties, the official

and professional fees, and the imperfections of the system of procedure, the reality

of justice be not compleatly excluded.}

{But to a professional eye to frame a set of provisions adequate to this purpose,

would taking into account on the one hand the present stage of the proposed system of

Election on the other hand the present state of the judicial procedure, be manifestly

impracticable. By whom the disbursements may have been made, by what means from the

hands of any public trustee appealed[?] to the reimbursements could be made

receivable without being taken up by costs – these are two among a multitude of

questions for which at present, no solution would be to be found.}