The Press. — London, England, 1856-02-16 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 16, 1856. V rotetViqs in arliamcnt. AMENDMENT OF THE LAWS. Mr. NAPIER, on Tuesday, moved the following re solution : That, in the opinion of [this house, as a measure of Administrative Reform, provision should be made for an efficient and responsible department of public justice, with a view to secure the skilful preparation and proper struc ture of parliamentary bills, and promote the progressive amendment of the laws of the United Kingdom. The right hon. gentleman, in a speech of great ability, commenced by pointing out the present dis graceful state of the law, of which three distinct sys tems—to each of which Parliament was every day making additions—were now in progress in the United Kingdom. Tho Scottish law rested on a distinct basis which he did not wish to disturb— with respect to Ireland, in addition to the common law of both countries, putt ing aside private and local arts, there were no fewer than 18,284 statutes, while some of the acts still suffered to encumber the statute-book were absurd and even ludicrous in their nature : For example, one of those laws imposed a penalty on Irish prelates fot collating an Irishman to 4 bene fice in England, or for bringing an Irishman to Parli ament to discover the counsels of Englishmen to rebels ; another defined what classes of Irishmen might come to dwell in England, declaring that none should he permitted to do so who hail not procured a testimonial from the Lord Lieutenant; another related to the carrying of coals to Newcastle—(laughter)—another prohibited a man, under a pecuniary penalty, from keeping more than 2,000 sheep ; and another was intended to regulate abstinence from flesh in Lent and other usual times. At the close of Queen Anne's reign the number of public statutes in existence was 3.277, of which no fewer than 2.074 had been either wholly or partially repealed, had become obso lete, or had expired ; and the recent expurgate list included 10,017 statutes for England alone. Last year a resolution was passed in that house ordering a bill forthwith to be introduced for the sweeping away of this huge heap of dead legislation, but that most desirable object had not yet been accomplished. Indeed, the noble Premier told them the other night that the task was one which far exceeded the powers of the present Government, or any other that was likely to succee lit. 'that was certainly a very discouraging intimation to the friends of law reform, and yet it ought to Induce them to grant a favorable consi deration to the remedy which he (Mr. Napier) now humbly a iggested. ( Hear, hear.) Successful attempts at codification had been made of old by Justinian, and by Trehonian ; in modern times by the Code Napoleon ; and still later by the New York Code. Lord Bacon, in the reign of James 1., had suggested the consolidation and reform of the law; Mr. Hargreaves, the great jurist, in 1787 had called attention to the increasing evil. Mackintosh, Romilly, and Brougham, all great law reformers, had made every effort for consolidating and simplifying the Statute Law, but nothing, had resulted. The present Lord Chancellor, in 1853, had proposed an admirable plan if carried out, but which Lord Pal meNton now declared to be impracticable. The current legislation of the day Mr. Napier thought the house would find of even greater importance than the point upon which he had just dwelt. The mole in which it was managed was most unsatisfac tory. Bills were brought in without restriction, amendments were made, and blunders, inconsistency, and confusion ensued : The same bills were bronght in over and over again— the same statements were made with respect to them—and then some member of the Government would get up and say, I don't object to the hon. member introducing this measure, but I don't pledge myself to the details." So it went on night after night and session after session. For instance, there was the Judgments Execution, which had been before the house four or five sessions, and which now stood again for a second reading. Then there was the old Fishery Bill, which he certainly thought had been extin guished ere this. Every year the same bills were intro duced, discussed, and aban toned, to undergo the same process in the next session. He wished some financial reformer would procure an account of the expense to which the country was put by these hills; he was sure it would be considerable. Now, in his opinion, you could not have a bill properly framed and matured until it became an act of Parliament, unless one head was charged with its con• duct who understood the whole bearing of the law in con nection with the subject-matter of the measure. At present a hill often fell into the hands of a member who knew nothing about the state of the law on that particular question ; the Government thought it prejudicial to their interests to refuse permission to introduce; end in con sequence there afterwards ensued a scrambling scene — the Government trying to trip up the bill at one stage of its progress or other, and their time and the national interest being thus sacrificed for the sake of political con venience. To remedy all this, he proposed the constitution of a particular department, presided over by a well qualified person, to whose scrutiny all bills should be first subjected. A thorough knowledge of the existing state of the law, and an acquaintance with the objects desired by the promoters of the bills THE PRESS. would insure the appearance of all future laws in an efficient and intelligible shape. Lord Bacon had originally suggested the formation of such a depart ment; Lord Brougham, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Langdale, had all enforced the necessity of estab lishing a board to assist in the preparation of public bilis. In conclusion, Mr. Napier insisted upon the advantages which would result from this reform of our current legislation in conjunction with an ex purgated and a classified code, which he remarked ought to be the intelligible expression of the mind of the country. Trade, public works, war, health, and education, had, or would have, their separate departments, and why should justice be left unre presented ? For himself, he was determined to persevere in the object he had undertaken. He pro posed that the new department should occupy itself with the amendment of the old law, the supervision of current legislation, and watch its practical work ing,. The Houses of Parliament would then be engaged with broad principles and great truths, rather than with miserable and petty details, and we should have our acts of Parliament made uniform and harmonious, and a general system of law con sistent, rational, clear, and intelligible. Mr. COLLIER seconded the motion. It addressed itself to an old constitutional malady, which per vaded to a certain degree every member of the body politic, but which, because it was not absolutely intolerable, we were apt to regard as an unavoidable dispensation of Providence, and not the result of our own ignorance and folly. In every other department of the State we were anxious to avail ourselves of every new invention, but in courts of law we clung to our me,Neval machinery. Not content with courts of law and equity, we had three sets of ecclesiastical courts, with a third mode of procedure. Our statute book was a mass of laws arranged without form and upon no plan, so that it was impossible to say how many were obsolete, or how many in force ; and the worst of it was that this was not a past hot a present and increasing evil. The reason why it continued was, that law reform was nobody's business. The work of reform doubtless would be gigantic; but when the Roman, tha French, and the American laws had been codified, why should we give up the task as hopeless? The present proposal was a step in the right direction. We had precedents on all sides for the appointment of a Minister to the D(.partment of Justice, and he trusted the house would take the matter into its serious consideration. Mr. BAINES admitted the importance of the sub ject. There was a concurrent opinion as to the existence of the evil, and the necessity of a remedy. He did not agree with the appointment of a Minister of Justice, which involved important political as well as legal considerations. The Statute Law Commis sioners were about to submit a plan upon this ques tion ; he suggested that it would be preferable that this plan should he first seen by the house before it adopted a resolution of an indefinite character, and which pledged the house to nothing at all. Mr. Loom KING and Mr. WIGRAM approved the principle of Mr. Napier's motion. Sir GEORGE GREY hoped Mr. Napier would not press the house to a division upon the question of the appointment of a Minister of Justice. The sub ject should receive the opinion of the able and eminent men composing the Statue Law Commis sion. The whole subject was of great importance, and could not be disposed of by a mere resolution of the house. Lord JOHN RUSSELL did not think that Mr. Baines was correct in stating that the motion was vague. It was as explicit as it could well be. It was not Mr. Napier's business to point out the details ; it WAS his business to assert the principle, and that he had done. Still, after the statement which had been made on the part of the Government, he (Lord John Russell) did not see how the house could well pro ceed to a vote. It was out of the question to expect that the Crown lawyers could devote themselves to the question of law reform. Of the two plans, that of Mr. Napier and the one shadowed forth by the Government, he (Lord John Russell) considered Mr. Napier's plan of a responsible Minister the most philosophical, the most practical, and the most con ducive to the objects in view. Mr. MALINS admitted the necessity for improving the process of current legislation, but this he could say that, under the present plan, legislation had the advantage of the greatest practical experience from members of the house. He could not vote for the motion, preferring to wait till the plan spoken of by Mr. Baines was promulgated. Lord PALMERSTON advised the house to exercise caution before committing itself to the appointment of a Minister of Justice. The difficulties in that direction were greater than appeared at first sight. For one thing, individual members might insist upon their own views in opposition to the suggestions of the Minister of Justice It was impossible to ex pect that members of Parliament would readily re nounce their independent opinions in matters of legislation. The noble lord hoped Mr. Napier would not press his motion to a division but wait till the 149 plan spoken of was promulgated. Should the learned gentleman deem that plan insufficient, he may take the opinion of the house upon his own scheme. Mr. NAPIER replied, and in his turn expressed a hope that the Government would not compel him to take a division. On the suggestion of Sir GEORGE GREY, Mr. NAPIER consented to strike out that part of his motion which pledged the house to the establish ment of a new department in the State. The motion thus amended was agreed to. CONSOLIDATION OF THE STATUTE LAW. Sir FITZROY KEIIX, on Thursday, moved for leaNe to bring in a bill to consolidate the statute low relating to offences against the person, and to amer d the statute law relating to bills of exchange and pre• missory notes. He proposed to classify and suodi vide the statutes under the heads of the differert subjects to which they related—to repeal the statutes upon each of those subjects, and to re-enact them 'n a single act of Parliament. The law now contains d about 20,000 acts, which he proposed to reduce to 200 or 300 only, each act embodying the statute law upon one particular subject; the whole to be em braced in a single index : To chow tt'e necessity of consolidation, it was only nem: sary to consider the statute•book. Such was its state of confusion that judges who had to administer the law, counsel who had to advise upon it, and the subjects of the realm who had to observe and obey it, in order to ascei tain the law upon any subject, must (in the absence of a text-book sufficiently ample and accurate to afford them exact information) search through the whole of the statutes from Magna Charts to the present time, and afttr all some section of a statute might escape their attentior, and thus leave them in error. When any member of Pat liament, from a laudable desire to improve the law, brought a bill into l'arliament, he would find it necessary, and yet extremely difficult, to make himself master of every provision in the sta.ute law bearing upon the subj.ct ; and probably some clause in the new measure would be incon sistent with some existing enactment, and thus a measure, n4eful in itself, led to litigation and uncertainty in the law. Adverting to the various fruitless attempts made to reduce the Statute Law into a more systematic Corm, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, distinguishing between codification and consolidation of the entire written law, proceeded to explain the plan he proposed to adopt : What he proposed to do was to take one, or two, or three of the most important, and, at the same time, most familiar subjects within the whole compass of the law, and which were also the subject of several acts of Parliament; then to go through the whole forty volumes of the statutes, and extract therefrom every act of Parliament, and every provision, every sentence and line in any act of Parliament which had any bearing upon that subject. That had, in truth, been done with relation to offences against the person, and bills of exchange and promissory notes, by the hills which he now wished to submit to the house. To explain what his intention was with regard to the statutes generally, he would point out what had been done in relation to the statutes referring to bills of exchanae. Any lawyer wishing to ascertain the state of the existing law with respect to bills of exchange would, unless he consulted some text-writer or some treatise on the subject, have to go through thirteen acts of Parliament, be ginning in the reign of William the Third and extending, he (Sir F. Kelly) believed, to the present reign. He won d have to look through the whole of those statutes, section I y section, to see whether there might not be a provision in some statute—passed,perhaps, in the reign of Queen Anre --which repealed or qualified a provision in some previous statute on the subject. What he therefore proposed was, to take out of each statute all that related to the particular subject upon which the law was to be consolidated, and then to repeal altogether the branch of the statute relating to the subject. Thus, in the case of hills of exchange, one single act would be substituted for the thirteen statutes now existing on the subject. The proposed bill to consoli date the law with regard to offences against the per's , n would have the effect of curtailing the statute-book by about 1,000 pages more; and the subject which would probably next be dealt with—the law of insurances—would take out about another 1,000 pages. As successive acts of Parliament fell into desuetude they would be removed from the statute-book. As to the codification of the law, its enormous difficulties would be materially lessened by a previous consolida tion of the Statute Law. He proposed to deal first with the statute law relating to offences against the person; and secondly, with the statute law relating to bills of exchange and promissory notes ; and pledged himself most carefully to superintend and revise the preparation of his measures, and em ploy none but the most competent persons upon the work. In conclusion, the hon. member alluded to the difficulties of codification, expressed his perfect confidence in the practicability of the measures he proposed, and, though so vast a subject would require time, he believed that in two years, if his measures were carried, the whole Statute Law of England would be consolidated. Lord STANLEY supported the measure. For half a century the question of law reform had been daily rising into greater and greater prominence—but from the want of a directing mind, and from a def.• eiency of popular interest, it bad been thrust aside for other matters less important but more interest ing. The difficulty had arisen, not so much from A