19 May 1805

Evidence

Introd.

False Ends. Judge

' 3. Corruption. Cause

Under the influence of this principle of corruption, the nature of the mischief receives an addition from two other circumstances. On is, in point of magnitude, and that a most enormous one. The quantum of emolument extractable by a Judge form any such occasion, will never make /correspond to/ more than an adequate /a portion/ of the which /entire/ /aggregate/ head of vexation and expense imposed on the suitor by that same occasion: so that in this way for every particle of profit /benefit/ received into his own purse, the Judge, with or without intending it, will be /was/ obliged to load the suitor with a burthen some number of times as great.

Another is in point of duration, past and probable future. The non-necessity of any increase /addition/ to the number of such occasions, that is of the operations required to be performed on those occasions, has never been so manifest to the public eye, ill-informed as it is, and through despair of information incurious on this ground, as the existence of any addition that may happen on this or that occasion to have been made: and thus it is that in every known state of things /society/ past or present the system of judicial procedure has been converted into a system of depredation [of] which the administration of justice has been the obsensible object, extortion has been the object principally pursued, and with much superior success. (a)

Note. (a) In Geneva affords /may be seen/ an exception: but of that sort of exception which operate in confirmation of the rule.

1 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends Judges

' 3. Corruption - cause

''.5. Channels through which the matter of corruption

between service and reward is formed in the manner in question, every particle of reward /whatever portion of the matter of the reward/ which the judge can hope to possess himself if by operations directed to that end, operates upon his mind, every particle of it in the way of corruption /a sinister direction/: or by a change not the less but the more effectual by being latent /quiet/ and imperceptible, the matter of reward

A point /distinction/carefully to be observed is - that it is in the mode of connection only, of the connection between the service and the reward, not in the quantum /magnitude/ of the reward, that this /so disastrous a/ change depends: and that of any increase, when the connection is formed in the conscious and proper mode, is not to operate /act/ as a forment, but on the contrary as a check.

If by adding to the number of operations performable /performed/, and thence of fees receivable from the aggregate number of suits in a year, that aggregate remains the same, it be in the power of the Judge to increase his annual emolument, from ,200 a year to ,400, the prospect of each /the/ additional ,200 a year operates /acts/ upon his mind in the character /form and direction/ of a bribe. Whereas if, instead of being thus capable of being by his own sinister exertions doubled, it be /were/ quadrupled to him in the shape of salary, no sinister influence takes place.

9 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch False Ends - Judges

'.3. Corruption. causes

But in this case the antiseptic[?] property of a large quantity of reward in the [...?] of salary may be destroyed by the addition of a small quantity in the [...?] of fees.

Fees are the [...?] and mass[?] [...?] of persons to the bosom of a Judge.

19 May 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. False Ends. 1 Judge

' 3. re-Opposition Mode

''.3. Opposition of that corrupt interest to the several ends of justice.

In the virtue and efficacy of the very simple and single circumstance above-mentioned may be seen a cause abundantly adequate to the placing the interest of the functionary in every /each/ one of its branches in a state of diametrical opposition to the interest of the parties in every /each/ one of its branches, or in other words, to his duty. On each /the referred/ occasion it is his interest, that his profit be as great, his labour as small as possible. By the measure of the pecuniary burthen imposed on the suitor, both of these ends /interests/ are served at once: those who have wherewithal /the money/ are pillaged, and thus his profit is assured: those who have it not are shut out; and thus his labour is diminished. The tax and the prohibition work hand in hand: each, though in a different way, operates /ensures/ to his benefit. /to the use of him by whom it is imposed./

Portions of the mass of wealth made to pass on the occasion of every operation out of the pocket o the individual into the pocket of a public functionary are called fees. By encreasing the number /multitude/ of operations, we have seen how he encreases the multitude of his fees. But delay in every length of it is a means /source/ of probable incident: every incident is a means /source/ of operations: every operation is a source /means/ of fees. Such then are already the consequences of the arrangement: on the part of the excluded indigent, disastrous or condemned, consequently according to the nature of the case, non-receipt of the benefit of the punishment that should have been administered to the injurer /author of the injury/, non-receipt of satisfaction, non-receipt of other rights of whatsoever nature, for whatsoever due: evils opposite to the direct ends of judicial procedure: on the part of the opulent the admitted and plundered opulent, vexation, expense and delay, evils opposite to the incidental collateral ends of procedure.

There remain those /the evils opposite to the/ branches of the alternate collateral end: administration of punishment when undue: collation of rights, (imposition of correspondent obligations); administration of satisfaction, (imposition of correspondent obligations) where undue. But to show /exhibit/ the birth of this last triplet of evils, we have no /nothing/ more to do but to convey the indigent man from the station of demandant to that of defendant: deprived by the Judge of the faculty of defence, that faculty which the hand that stripped him of it, calls upon him to exercise he finds himself subjected of course to one or more of those burthens /afflictions/, according to the nature of the case.

19 May 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends. Judge

' 3. Opposition Mode

In this way we have seen the Judge deriving his double advantage from non-demand, [...?], and non-decision, with their attendant evils, the results of the tax he has imposed: how the same advantage has been /is/ extracted by him from another cause of those same evils misdecision, remains to be explained. The case of operations, unnecessary /useless/ in themselves, rendered necessary by institution, by his own opposition[?] it[?] made for the purpose, have already been brought to view. But by what means have they been rendered /[...?]/ necessary? - by appointing, as the punishment of law[?] that one of the parties who shall have failed in the performance of them, the loss of his cause. But every such decision, being thus up on the face of it undue, is a decision in the talk[?] of one or more of six out of the seven ends of justice: if the party [...?] punishment of the demandant, one or more of those direct[?] ends: of the defendant, one or more of those ultimate collateral ends.

Misdecision through what is called corruption might here be /have been/ added: but misdecision from any such source belongs not to the /by any particular/ arrangement the fundamentally vicious arrangement here in question. It affords not any peculiar tacility /[...?]/ to misdecision from that source: under this system misdecision through corruption is not less exposed to punishment, less exposed to detection than under any other /the [...?]/. it acts rather as an obstacle to misdecision: for the more emolument a man has it in his power without exposing himself to punishment, or so much as to reproach /shame/, the less need has he to expose himself to punishment in pursuit of it.

19 May 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. False Ends. Judge

' 3 Opposition Mode

Whensoever, by being assured of the relative indigence and consequent defencelessness of his adversary, a man may be sure of succeeding in his suit, he has no need to trouble himself about the justice of his cause: a cause which he knows to be unjust will in this case give him at least as full an assurance of success, as he could derive from the justice of the most clearly just cause. In this way the arrangement holds out invitation to malâ fide suitors to malâ fide defendants to mala fide demandants always on condition of their opulence /[...?] finances/, and multiplies ad infinitum the number of mala fide defences and demands: in this way the judge renders himself the rewarder, the encourager, the accomplice of iniquity, in all its shapes /in every imaginable shape/, is to be found in the person of the judge.

In some cases it will happen, that the person /individual thus/ excluded from the station of demand, is a person on whose part in an appropriate demand, in this case termed a prosecution was necessary to the punishment of some offence, raised by punishment or public indignation to the rank and application of a cause. In this way it is that by the means of art[?] for the sake of such his fees, the Judge renders himself, /we may see the judge rendering/ himself the reward, the encourager, the accomplice of every imaginable crime.

30 May 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. False Ends. Judge

' 3. Opposition Mode

In whatsoever community expense to any considerable amount is factitiously attached, in the character of an indespensible condition, to the faculty of obtaining the end of justice, justice is in effect denied /refused/ to the great body of the people: say to none out of two /three out of four/; say to thirty men out of forty: say to ninety-nine out of a hundred: according to the relative quantum of this part of the expense: of the matter of wealth, of the means of subsistence, they have but a bare sufficiency for ordinary occasions; they have nothing at all for this extraordinary one.

In this way it is, that under the arrangement in question, it is the interest of the Judge to refuse his aid to deny justice to the great body of the people: in respect of those rights, the claim of which presents itself in a non-penal shape. It is seen already that to him by whom a faculty of adding without [...?] to the quantum of factitious expense is possessed, that power can never be wanting. We shall see hereafter in what particular way /by what particular contrivances/ that power has expressed /displayed/ itself: and at the same time in how high a degree that deplorable defect has accordingly /actually/ been produced.

[...?...?] 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends. Judge

' 5. This & bribery

''.5. Comparison between corruption in this form and bribery.

 Introduction Cont.

I say in the form and attraction[?] of a bribe. Yet in respect of the degree of force, there is no comparison. In the shape of a bribe, received in that form from a determinate individual, nothing can be received by any man official person, in the station of Judge or any other /man in this station or any other/, without his putting himself completely into the power of the giver of the bribe: exposing himself thus to utter ruin, not only by /from/ the voluntary hostility of the bribe-giver but from his indiscretion as well as a variety of other accidents. In the shape of fees, received, as of right for business really done, whatever is received, especially by a hand thus contracted in power is received in perfect safety.

Under a system of this kind, it may happen, that no bribes are ever taken. Be it so, and what then? the pear /fruit/ has no specks in it: True: yet what is it worth: when it is /if it be/ rotten at the core?

Bribery is a distinct mischief, and an account of the want of confidence the general alarm it would be productive of, if common, might be still worse: but the remedies against it are so effectual, that in comparison of the other deeper-seated principle of corruption is scarce worth thinking of.

If a Judge be discovered to have received a bribe, nobody, not even he himself, has anything to say in his defence: whereas of a system thus rotten in the core, one of the bad effects, is as will be seen is that the more corrupt it is, the less it is thought to be. Shares in the sinister profit of the system being possessed by or hoped for by all who are in a condition to acquire any tolerable insight into it, the more corrupt it is, the more [...?] it is [...?]: the injuries[?] of those who suffer from it, are drowned by the acclamations of those who profit by it. Even the patient who knows so well what he suffers, knows not from what cause. Deceived by theories as industriously circulated as they are false, the poison really administered by the physician is referred by him to the disease. Seeing no individual living on whom blame can fasten itself, he concludes there is none any where. And thence the whole community is divided into two classes: the one composed of imposters, the other of dupes: the imposters, of whom none are so fit for being so duped by others converting others into dupes, as those who have succeeded best in their endeavour to become dupes to be such themselves.

1 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. False Ends. Judge

' 5 This & bribery

Between corruption in the shape of bribery, and corruption in this shape, there is another distinction and that a most momentous /serious/ one. In the shape of Bribery, like the sort of the English lawyers it dies with the person: in the shape of this unheeded and innumerate /undenominated/ species, it lives with the system, lives as long as that does, and grows richer and richer the longer it has lived. Bribe-taking is the work of an instant, and dies as soon as born. In the other case the profit made by the first purchaser (to speak as an English lawyer) descends to successors, and descends pure: pure, not only of all danger but of all blame.

Bribery is seldom employed but to produce misdecision: ultimate injustice to one or the other side. But of this corrupt connection /corruption/ injustice is equally apt to be the fruit[?] in all its shapes: in the shapes of vexation, expense and delay more naturally and directly than in the shape of misdecision in favour of /for or against/ either side.

When under the influence of this principle of corruption, a system corrupt throughout, adverse throughout to the ends of justice has been produced, the poison of it applies itself to all sorts of causes and to each individual cause of every sort: whereas when it is only in the shape of bribery that the cause of injustice is applied, the effects of it, except in the shape of danger and alarm, that part of the mischief of it which is of the first order, is confined to the individual cause on the occasion of which the briber is given and accepted /received/.

1 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends. Judges

' 6. Interest connection

''.6. Connection between the Judge's and other sinister interests.

Among the different classes of men of law with /by/ which society is saved and afflicted /kept together/ [and afflicted],, /afflicted served and kept together/, that of the Judge, though the highest is but one. Of the others, as formed by natural causes, an enumeration has above been given: + and, be it as it may /howsoever the matter may stand/ with regard to the relative number of the individuals it has been seen at the same time how impossible it is that society should be rid of any entire class.

Of the sinister interest conferred to the person of the judge the nature and cause has /causes have/ already been explained. But every other class of lawyers has its interest: and in each instance that same cause has rendered the interest a sinister one. The direction thus given to the form of interest was indeed in these instances still more unavoidable than in that of the judge. Had intelligence /wisdom/ as well as opulence exerted on the part of the legislator in sufficient quantity /degree/ Judges and other official hands /such servants of the public/ might from the first have been paid by salary: but in the sort of /this field of/ service here in question such mode of payment would not have been applied /applied itself/ to the services rendered to individuals by individuals: the service being occasional, and [...?], such could not but have been the reward.

+ ch. Vexation