25 Dec r 1807

Table VII. Jurisdiction Table VII

Notes

'.II. Stages of Appeal, how many?

Subordinate Topics.

1. In point of fact, in English and Scottish judication respectively, how far, in the several states of jurisdiction, the real number of stages coincides with the apparent: viz. in what instances is it greater?

2. Herein[?] if disguised stages of Appeal. In English Equity, procedure, for example. Report by a subordinate Judge (and[?] Master[?]) and Exceptions thereunto, argued before the supreme Judge: the Chancellor or the Master of the Rolls. So in Scottish procedure, in the Court of Session, vibrations between the Bill Chamber, and the two Houses, Inner and Outer. *?

3. In point of utility, what are general principles in the proper number of stages of Appeal? See Shapes of injustice

4 By what particular circumstances, topographical or logical (logical, resulting from the place of the cause in the field of judicature) are indications afforded for the diminution or augmentation of the number of these stages?

5. In point of fact, Comparative multitude of intermediate stages in Scottish judicature in comparison of English and Irish; no regard being had, in the case of the English, to the cases most frequently exemplified in practice.

6. In point of utility, how far it is desirable, that the number of stages, through which the suit is capable of being made to pass should rest on the arbitrary will of the Plaintiff or his Attorney, to be exercised either at the outset of the cause (ex. gr, by commencing[?] it either by Original, (which throws out the Exchequer Chamber) or by Bill, which leaves the Exchequer Chamber in) or at any intermediate period[?]: ex. gr. in Chancery by setting the cause down for hearing either before the Chancellor or the Master of the Rolls?

N.B. Analogous to this in criminale is the practice, which in capital cases, gives a power of pardon to the prosecutor, by leaving it at his option to ground[?] the indictment on a Statute subjecting the offence to capital punishment, or on a Statute subjecting it to a punishment less than capital, or on the Common Law.