The Sun.
London, England, 1836-01-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

In all political and legal circles the general inquiry
at this tirlie is. Who is to be Chancellor Ministers
must no doubt be aware of the heavy responsibility
whidi attaches to the manner in which they shall fulfil
the duty of selecting the highest Judge of the land.
It has been generally understood, in the best-informed
circles, for a week past, that Lord Brougham is no
longer an obstacle in the way of an arra andngem,:nt,
that the Cabinet had determined to appo':ut some other
:',aniiiisterctl, under
person to the judicial office now 1
many inconveniences, by the -Lords Commissioners,
via.—the Master of the P....0i15, the Vice-Chancellor,
and Mr. Justice B osP:nquet. Report says that such
is the final deters':nation of Ministers ; and under all
circumstances P.,ineir decision will be generally deemed
wise. We 'oclieve that no difference of opinion exists
among Qie most intelligent and disinterested members
of the Legal Profession as to the propriety of separat-
ing t'ne political and judicial functions attached to the
G•reat Seal. All unite in admitting the ah'solute neces-
sity of effecting this long-desired and ;important reform.
The state of Parties, the aniusity of Faction—of
which we have a sigraificant indication in the recent
pamphlet by Sir Edward Sugden—will no doubt op-
pose formidable obstacles to the accomplishment of any
Ministerial project for effecting such a separation in
the approaching Session of Parliament. Ministers will,
however, add to their reputation, and greatly advance
the question, by boldly and unequivocally facing the
Rouse of Lords on this most important question. We
should advise them to adopt no half-and.-half measure,
to attempt no " patch-work" plan for curing the de-
fects of the Chancery and Appellate Jurisdiction, as
existing in the House of Peers. There has been no
lack of affectation of liberal sent,',ments on this subject
—we have had enough of fakse and impotent pretences
to " reform the Court. of Chancery —too much of
substitute Courts fora separate Bankrupt Jurisdiction,
and a surfeit of Bilis talked of and dropped, stillborn, in
the House of Lords. What is now wanted, is to have
at the head of the law a man of instructed and vigorous
mind, capable and sincerely desirous of planning a real
reformation of the Equity Judicial system. What is
now the situation of the Equity Courts ? Hundreds, bf
arrear " Causes"—" Further Directions"—" r:xcep-
tions"—" abatedand standing-over CauP:es"—arrear
64 Petitions"—arrear " Motions"—now crowd the rolls
in the three Courts. And who are tl:ie Judges thus con-
fused and overwhelmed with ityncial inquiry, involving, the pecuniary interests; 'and frequently the cha-
racter of all classes of the English community ?
It is a matter of rt'trariety that one Judge is not emi-
nently qualified trr his situation. We reveal no se-
cret—it has berm for years the subject matter of undis-
guised and r..eneral remark. In his Court, it is known
that the Afvocate, not the Judge, has long dictated the
judge:E.:fit. The Rolls has been recently provided with
a big* respectable Judge, much esteemed by the pro-
test/ion, well qualified for his particular Court, but, Per-
ha.ps, not possessed of the judicial qualities which
-would eminently fit him for the highest jurisdiction.
The Master of the Rolo
and the Vice-Chancellor are
now also partially occilpied, and inconveniently with-
drawn from their own separate jurisdictions, by the ad-
ditional duty thre.,wn on them of Lords Commissioners,
with Mr. Just!Ace Bosanquet, a Common Law Judge.
Appeals frcnn the Master of the Rolls are, therefore,
necessarD:y left to the exclusive decision of the Vice-
ChancrAor and the latter Judge 7. We will not give
public currency to the observations of the profession on
this subject, openly made in the
Equity Courts. e
Appellate Jurisdiction in the House of Lords is left
without a recognised official head in the " Right
Honourable House ;" and if a Lord Chancel-
lor were there, just comments would continue
to be made on the farcical situation of liti-
gants appealing from a Chancery decree, which is
in effect from the Lord Chancellor on the Bench in
Westminster Hall to the Lord Chancellor on the
Woolsack in the House of Peers. In the latter ca-
pacity he sits in judgment on his own decisions, sup-
ported by a quorum of two young Peers, who having
no other way of killing time, place themselves by his
side t This is no caricature or exaggeration. We
have actually seen within twelve months a juvenile
Lord, barely out of his minority, "brought down" to
" make a number." Lord Hale, two centuries ago,
denounced this mockery of justice. How much must
the evils so vividly described by this " upright man"
and accomplished Judge, have been aggravated by
the subsequent accumulation of suits and their in-
creased relative importance during the present century?
The increase of business in the Courts of Chancery
from the commencement of the 'reign of George 111.
to the present time may be estimated from the fact
thay the property involved in the Court of Chan-
cery has risen from the sum of 4,700,0001. to the ex-
traordinary amount of forty millions sterling. We
think the time is, therefore, come when Lord Mel-
bourne may gain great credit to his Government, and
effect incalculable good, by boldly laying the axe to the
root of the prevent ludicrous and indefensible Appel-
late Jurisdiction of the Peers. The days are num-
bered of " Hereditary Judges." Relieve the Lords
from duties which they cannot fitly discharge. The
Appellate Jurisdiction may flatter their self-impor-
tance, but the nation repudiates them as Judges.
This nuisance of hereditary judgeship must and will
be abated. It has long been the real stumbling-block
in the way of a thorough reformation of our Equity
Jurisdictions. Blackstone's plausible vindication of
this
ereC
g
ourt of hihest appeal is, when attentively con-
cutting a cutting exposure of the evils inseparable
from the system. The accomplished but superficial
commentator, in his preliminary advice on the study
of the law, addresses the following exhortation to our
young nobility
Propriety of their application to the study of the laws of
eir country, will hold equally strong or still stronger, with
regard to the Nobility of this realm, except only the article
of serving upon juries. But, instead of this, they have
several peculiar provinces of far greater consequence and
concern ; being not only by BIRTH the HEREDITARY coun-
cillors of the Crown, and JUDGES upon their HONOUR of
the lives of their brother Peers, but also ARBITERS of the
PROPERTY (!RLL their FELLOW SUBJECTS, and that in the
last resort. In this th.eir JUbICIAL CAPACITY they are bound
to DECIDE the NICEST and MOST CRITICAL POINTS of the
LA,w ; to examine and correct such errors as have escaped
the most experiezeed sages of the profession—the Lord
Keeper and Jn.dges of the Courts at Westminster. Their
sentence is FINAL, DECISIVE, IRREVOCABLE ; no appeal, no
correction, not even a review can be had : and to their
determirration, whatever it be, the inferior courts of justice
must 'conform ; otherwise the rule of property would no
lonvir be uniform and steady."
jSo much for this astounding statement of the
udicial functions of the Peers and their awful weight
of aristocratic responsibility. What says Blackstone
on their Lordship's eminent qualifications for this ex-
tensive power of disposal of the property of their
fellow-subjects ?
" Yet, vast as this TRUST is, it can nowhere be so pro-
perly reposed as in the NOBLE HANDS where our excellent
Constitution has placed it : and therefore placed it, because,
from the independence of their fortune, and the DIGNITY of
their STATION, they are PRESUMED to employ that leisure
which is the consequence of both, in attaining a more ex-
tensive knowledge of the laws than persons of inferior
rank ; and because the founders of our polity relied upon
that DELICACY Of SENTIMENT so peculiar to noble BIRTH :
which, as, on the one hand, it will prevent either interest or
affection from interfering in questions of right, so, on the
other, it will bind a Peer in HONOUR, an obligation which
the law esteems equal to another's oath, to be master upon
those points which it is his BIRTH-RIGHT to decide !"-
Commentaries, ch. 1.

This is one of those happy discoveries " of merit
inseparable !min high station which a commentator
On Blackstone wittily exposes :—" It is by looking at
men's titles that Blackstone perceives, not merely that
they ought to possess certain merits, not that there is
reason to %visit they may possess them, but that they
do actually possess them, and that it is by possessing
those merits that they come to possess those titles."—
(Fragment on Government.) We shall only observe,
with respect to these patrician Judges, that this
country will no longer suffer itself to be oppressed
by institutions exhibiting such glaring defects—insti-
tutions which it has long outgrown :—Let, therefore,
Government go boldly to work ; and by competent
hands prepare a Bill to transfer the entire Appellate
Jurisdiction—so far as it is unconnected with the
" dignities and privileges of the Peerage," to a su-
preme Court of Appeal of superior Judges. This
will be a real cure of-the evil, a legitimate remedy that