The National Register.
London, England, 1818-11-02 00:00:00

br

No. 580.—VoL. XL

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

ON THE APPOINTMENT OF MR. JUSTICE ABDOT
'I:0 DE THE CHIEF JUSTICE.

THE appointment of Mr, Abbot from a Puisne
Judgeship, to seeceed Lord Elleuborough as Chief Jus.
ties of England, has occasioned a lively discussion be-
tween the C'hrouicle and Courier. The former paper is
certainly justified in •saying that such a practice, if it
shall become usual, will have an irresistible tendency
to annihilate the boasted independence of English
Judges, by keeping them always in expectation of a
ttanslatien, even as the Bishops aro made subservient
to the Minister of the day. But party spirit carried
that paper too far, when it ventured to assert that such
promotions of Puisne Judges were unprecedented. 'Elia
rash position, which is not supported by fact, laid the
Chronicle open to a triumphant reply, and injured a
good argument. It is true that there are precedents
before the present time, of such translations; but it is
nut true that it ever was the general practice. The
eeeeption does not prove the rule. The principles of
the Constitution aro decidedly adverse to any thing
winch has a tendency to impair the independence
of the judicial character, and nothing has a greater
tendency that way, than the established practice
of tucking the situation of a Puisne Judge a step to
that of a Chief ; for the whole genius of our Constitu-
tion leads to rendering the administration of the law
totally independent of the Executive Power, and of
the Legislative. It is to the absolute separation of
these three powers, that we owe our freedo:n. It was
to the union of• them, that Rome and Athens owed the
ticstruction of theirs. In the latter of those celebrated
Republics all three were united, and the assembled pea-
pie were as formidable a tyrant as Nero ltimself: in the
gOrmer, the legislative and the judicial power met in the
assembly of the people, and ei miler consequences ensued.
In former times of Eneiish history, under thePlantage-
nets, and particulary the Tudors, and Stuarts, though
the separation of judicial power from ►he executive had
been effected, yet its independence was not established.
Hence the tyrannical decisions of the Court of the
Star Cha!nher, amid the judicial murders of the corrupt
Jeffries, The abolition of the Star Chain er and the
independence of tho de/Igen, were the fluits and the
best securities of the fluel esteblishment of our liber-
ties ; and the filirest featere in the character and reign
of George 111. was the ap;voiatment of Judges during
good behaviour, ,Ito piaatiee, however, of studiously
keeping them within the roach of temptation, by thus
translating them like the Bishops, less a tendency di-
reedy opposite ; and though nut unprecedented in some
instances, is certainly unauthorised by general custom.
IVe hope, therethre, that the present will be a solitary
instance,

A lett‘w from Aix.la-Chapelle states, that the King
of Prussia hus artniled a new University at Bain, anti
onnottnced such his *yid resulution in an enlightened
letter to Prince Hardenberg, on the anniversary of the
battle of Jena. The eitial and perket tolerance which
his Majesty uttinds to Cathelic and Pune:it:int tuemberi
of this iarwit University is among the moat remarkable
eircutustances attendant on its fiiundution. A second
letter (of the 24th tilt.)from the same quarter, infbrrna
us. that the promised declaration of the Allies to the
Prowlt people will be really to bo laid befiwe the So.
vercigns on their return to Congress, The Emperor
Alexander was looked for.on the 30th, that he might
meet the Empress dowager before hi. visit to Models.
The claims hreught forward by the n Piinces
of Germany upon the attention, if not upon the justice
of the higher states, seem to have excited some interest
in the diplomatic contomnity, 'that the prerogatives
of many of these Pt inces were wrongfally swept away
by Buonaparte, there can be little doubt ; but how far,
sure the change has been made, a restoration of those
prorogatives might be for the happiness of the people
over whom they once were exercised, is question
which we do not undertake to settle,