The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-09 00:00:00

ibe Courts of Justice should • dispense with
those forms which are necessary to give regularity
to their proceedings ? Far from it ;we would havt-
all the forms preserved that are requisite to give to
legal, proceedings order and exactnes.! ; because such
forms facilitate justice, instead of impeding it. But
we would have all those technical subterfuges swept
away which have been • contrived for the purpose
of defeating, by unmeaning . verbiage, the merit.,
of a else. They are the disgrace of our law,
which boasts to be the, perfection of reason, but
which such contrivances would make the perfection
of absurdity. If sneh forMs were only silly, it
would be cause enough to get rid of them ; but they
are worse—they enable those who make a sorditi

trade of a liberid profession to fleece suitors of their
money with shameless and exorbitant cupidity. It

. _
is for this reason that they meet with any support.
If they were merely
unprofitable verbiage there
would be no obstacle to applying to them the
pruning-hook of reform, for nobody 'would feel in-
terested in their preservation. There are other
subjects in Mr. Brougham's speech, besides special-
pleading, which we had previously touched upon,
and to which we shall at a future opportunity ad-
vert. There is one topic, however, which we can-
not see in the same light that he does—it is the al-
lowing fees to Judges. This we think 'an unwise
and mischievous practice. Mr. Brougham is of
opinion that judicial fees operate as a stimulus to
judicial exertion. We are as desirous as the
Learned Gentleman can be that the administrators

of the law should receive adequate salaries, but we

would not have them paid for their services on a
principle that would give them an interest in litiga-
tion. The evil arising . from such a mode of pay-
..

ment would far overbalance any incidental advan -

tage. Let Judges have salaries suitable to their
station, and let them be well selected for their
office, and they will not require the sordid stimulus
of fees to.incite them to the diligent and effective
performance of their duty. The system of allowing
fees upon trials to Clerks of the Peace has already
done great mischief throughout the country by hold-
ing out a premium for the increase of paltry prosecu-
tions. The practice ought to be universally abo-
lished.—Morning Herald. •
The objects of Mr. Brougham's motion, on Thurs-
day night, will be best got at by stating them •nega-
tively, as he himself-did, for there is no generic term
under which those parts of the law and its adminis-

tration, whose imperfections he endeavoured to point
out, are comprehended. From his motion fall to be
excluded, Ist. Equity, unless in those cases where it
'incidentally interferes with common law business.
2d. Criminal Law in all its branches. 3d. Commer-
cial Lam'. With these three great exceptions, his
motion embraced; in a greater or lesser degree, the
whole juridical and • judicial system of the empire.
The Courts of Common'Law are three in number—
the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common
Pleas, and the Court of Exchequer. Each of these
Courts, though originally instituted for specific
purposes, now claims and exercises the right of
lry'aig actions between subject and subject, or
common pleas. The effect of the . competition
which 'is the result, •is narrowed, however, in
the Common Pleas, by the exaction of fees greater
in amount in some cases, and earlier in payment in
ali—by excluding certain suitors, and by confining
practically the Management of hose that are ad-
mitted to a very limited number of Counsel; and in
the Exchequer, by the mixed character of its busi-
ness, composed, of Crown actions and common
pleas, equity proceedings and common law proceed-
ings—by the monopoly enjoyed by the Attornies and
Clerks of Court, and the distrust which such mix.-
ture and monopoly have engendered in the public.
The Bail Court was intended to lighten the .busi-
ness of the King's Bench when Sitting in Banco, but
has failed, or rather done injury to the King's
Bench—first, because it has no power to transact
important business, while it requires the attend-
ance of three Judges—and next, because it leaves
but. one Judge to the really important business
of the Court it was intended to as-ist. The
Chamber business, which- necessarily requires a
Judge, adds to the embarrassment occasioned by
the detraction of three for the purposes of the
Bail Court. The system of remunerating the
Judges wholly by salary, Mr. Brougham considers
calculated to induce indolent habits, and the
practice of choosing them from one side of the bar
only, as diminiShing unnecessarily the chances of
their fitness. He deprecates the practice of pro-
moting the Puisne Judges, as tending to produce a
leaning towards the opinions of the Ministry of the
day, and also the general way in which the office of
Welsh Judge, no unimportant one, is filled. To
the evils arising out of the Bail Court, he would
piooese, as a remedy, that Barristers of five years'
standing should sit in that Court instead of Judges;
and, with die same view of providing more effec-
tually for the enormous increase of business at West-
minster Hall, he would have the number. of Judges
increased to fourteen,. by which means two might be
spared to go the' Welsh. Circuit, and. thus the
Welsh Judges be altogether dispensed with. To
stimulate the activity of the Bench, while he left it
a fair permanent emolument, he would give it an
interest in the despatch of business, by making a
part of its revenue depend on the number of
causes tried, The practice of promoting Puisne
Judges he would altogether abolish. Of the
Terms, or at least of the mode of calculating their
commencement, Mr. Brougham complained very
justly; and this small alteration, namely, that the
Terms at present moveable should have a fixed day
for their commencement, which would add largely
'to the comfort of the Bar, will probably he at once
agreed on, so that we may dismiss any consideration
of it in Noire, Besides adding to the narnber of
Judges, Mr. Brougham would endeavour to increase
the value of their labo,era by a division of cases into
elassses, leaving one case to be tried by one judge,
and another by another ; and he wool(' have the
principle observed in the Exchequer as, well ae the
Bench; By a division of the Equity and Common
Law cases in the former Court, the . latter might,
he conceives, be relieved from a large portion of the
business which at present overwhelms it, In re-
ference to the Courts of Civil Law, Me. Brougham,
somewhat in opposition to a position he had laid
down in respect of others, would 'ildvise a higher
salary, and the abstraction of thoSe fees which
add, during war, so largely to the salary of
the Judge of the Admiralty Court. He ob-
jects also to the appointment of the other Judges
of the Civil Law not by. the Crown, nor its respon-
sible officers, but by the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Bishop of London, and comments with con-
siderable severity on 614 Court of Delegates, as a
Court of Appeal, which from its very nature, must
be composed in part of the inferior practitiOn.ersof the
Courts whence the appeal is made. To the constitution
of the Privy Coumil as a Court of Appeal in colonial
matters, where the difficulty of exercising its func-
tions wisely and justly is mfinitelk enhanced by the
circumstance, that almost every one of the Colonies
has a different code of laws, Mr. Brougham with
much appearaoce of reason, very strongly objects.
site observes also on the paucity of its sittings, as
aggravating very greatly
the ,other evils of the Court
—the average, for twelve years
haw been only
nine days per ,annum. He denies that any read
Court of Appeal can be, said to exist in England on
colonial matters, under such circumstances. That
the sentences in the inferior Courts must often be
such as an appeal from them would have been desirable,
seems proved by the official character of the Judges that
:have presided in them—here a General deciding on
'Equity; there a Captain at Nisi Prius—and,
another, a Major pronoancing in a case of Civil Law.
As tending to introduce a better system in the lower
Courts, Mr. Brougham strongly advises- the admis-
sibility of natives, as jurors, in all cases. The last
part of Mr. Broughams subject respects the ap,
pointment of Justices of the Peace : and he dwells
on their power ; and the acknowledged abuse of their
power is strongly *exemplified in the. Golden-lane
brewery ease, which could not proCareokieheensein
the course of eight years, with great seventy; and
also to the conduct of Quarter Sessions, in cases Of