The National Register.
London, England, 1818-11-01 00:00:00

No. .6O.—Vot. 11.

POLITICAL DIsQLJ 15ITION.

ON TIM APPOINTMENT OF 74 It. JUSTICE AraliOT
TO BE THE EV JUSTICE.

THE appointment of Mr. Abbot from a Puisne
Judgeship, to succeed Lord Ellenbe rough as Chief Jus-
tice of England, has occasioned a lively discussion be.
tweets the Chronicle and COnrier. The firmer paper is
certainly justified in saying that such a practice, if it
shall became usual, will have on irresistible tendency
to annihilate the boasted independence of English
Judges, by keeping them always in expectation of a
translation, even as the Bishops are made subservient
to the Minister of the day. But party spirit carried
that paper too fur, wizen it ventured to assert that such
promotions of Puisne Judges were unprecedented. The
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
not true that it ever was the general practice The
exception does not prove the rule. The principles of
the Constitution are decidedly adverse to any thing
which has a tendency to impair the independence
of the judicial character, and nothing has a greater
tendency that way, than the established practice
of making 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 freedom. It. was
to the union of them, that Rome and Athens owed the
destruction of theirs. In the latter of those celebrated
Republics all three were united, and the assembled peo-
ple were as formidable a tyrant as Nero himself: in, the
former, the legislative and the judicial power met in the
assembly of the people, and similar consequences ensued.
In former times of English history, under thePlantage-
nets, and particulary the Tudors, and Stuarts, though
the separation of judicial power from the executive had
been effected, yet its independenee was not established.
Hence the tyrannical decisions of the Court of the
Star Chamber, and the judicial murders of the corrupt
Jeffries. The abolition of the Star Chamber and the
independence of the Judges, were the fruits and the
best securities of the final establ.ishment'of our liber-
ties ; and the fairest featurc in the character and reign
of George 111. was the appointment of Judges during
good behaviour. The practice, he'vevcr, of studiously
keeping them within the. reach of temptation, by thus
translating them like the Bisiopa, has a tendency di-
rectly opposite ; and though not unprecedented in some
instances, is certainly unauthorised by general custom.
We hope, therefore, that the present will be a solitary
instance.

A letter front Aix-la-Chapelle states, that the King
of Prussia has founded a new truiversity at Bonn, and
announced such his Royal resolution in an enlightened
letter to Prince llardenberg. on the anniversary of the
battle of. Jena. The e foal and perfect tolerance which
his Majesty affords to Catholic and Protestant memhers
of this infant University is among the most remarkable
circumstances attendant on its foundation. A second
letter (of the 25th ult.)from the same quarter, informs
us. that the promised declaration of the Allies to the
French peop!e will be ready to be laid betbre the SW'
‘ereigns on their return to Congress. The Emperor
Alexander was lisle(' for on the 50th, that he might
meet the Empress dowager bctiTe his visit to Brussels.
The claims brought farward by the mediatised Princes
of Germany upon the attention, if not upon the justice
of the higher states, seem to have excited scene interest
in the diplomatic community. That the prerogatives
of many of these Princes were wrongfully swept away
by BuonaparLe, there can he little doubt ; but how ter,
sine the change has been made, a restoration of those
prerogatives might be for the happiness of the people
over wheat they once were exercised, is a question
which we do not undertake to settle.