Star.
London, England, 1830-07-16 00:00:00

OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE.

The following Circular has beetTtransmittecl from the Home Office
to the different Clerks of the Peace throughout the Kingdom :
(COPY.)
Whitehall, July 9, 1830.

Sir,—l am directed by Secretary Sir Robert Peel, to acquaint
you, that, having received several applications on the sub-
ject of the oaths which ought to be taken by Justices of the
Peace, In consequence of his Majesty's Accession, he has con-
sulted with the Law Officers thereon, and thinks it right to

acquaint you, for the information of the Justices of the Peace
for the county of , that, though not strictly necessary, It
will be right, that justices, not professing the Roman Catholic re-
ligion, should, at their first sessions, take the oaths of Allegiance,
Supremacy, and Abjuration; and that justices professing theßoman
Catholic religion should also, at their first sessions, take the oaths re-
quired by the 10 Geo. IV. c 7; but justices need not take any other
oath until a new commission of the peace shall be issued by his
present Majesty.
When such new Commission shall have issued, every Justice, not
professing the Roman Catholic religion, intending to act under the
new Commission, must take the Oath of Office before the Clerk of
the Peace, or his Deputy ; and make and subscribe the Declaration
required by the 9 Geo. IV. c. 17, in lieu of the Sacramental Test,
and take the Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration ; and
Justices appointed by the new Commission, professing the Roman
Catholic religion, must take the Oath of Office, and make and sub-
scribe the Declaration before-mentioned, in lieu of the Sacramental

Test, and also take the oath prescribed by the Act 10 Geo. IV. c. 7.
Such of the Justices as ;have not previously taken the Oath of
Qualification as to property must take that oath likewise ; but
those who have taken that oath under any former commission will
not be obliged to take it again. _

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
The Clerk of the Peace for S. Al. PHILLIPS.
the County of
[We had always understood that every subject of the realm was
bound, on his allegiance, to take these oaths whenever called upon,
and that with persons holding office under the Crown it was indis.
wasable. That, it appears, however, is not the case, his Majesty's
Whig Attorney-General having, it seems, discovered that which is
"right" is " not strictly necessary 11

SCOTCH JUDICATURE BILL.
PRO EST
Entered in the Journals of the House of Lords on the rejection of
the Amendment proposed by Lord Eldon, that the Bill, entitled
" An Act for uniting the benefits of Jury Trial in Civil CRIMPS
with the ordinary jurisdiction of the Court of Session," should
be read a second time that day six months.
Dissentient 1. Because ft appears to us as unprecedented as it Is
indecorous, that a bill of such MO importance, which has for its
object regulating and new modellirhe proceedings of the Court
of Session, of the Court of Justiciary, of the Jury Court, of the
Court of Exchequer, of the Coals and Maritime Courts, and
even of the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland, should be pressed on the
consideration of ibis house at a period so near the conclusion of the
melon as to render it impossible for the members of this house to
bestow upon it that attention which it is their bouaden duty to give
to a measure on the details of which depends the due administration
of justice in all its branches throughout Scotland.
2 Because we feel it odv duty to express our 'egret and astonish-
ment that a Government, who may justly pride itself upon the be-
nefits it has bestowed on this country by simplifying and email.
dating many branches of our laws, should be induced to recommend
to this house a bill, which purports to -aka and amend all the Acts
hitherto passed Toe establishing trial by jury in civil causes in Scot-
land, but which contains no one definite as direct alteration or
amendment of those laws, and alone attempts to l effect its avowed
object by declaring " that all the provisions of thaw Acts shall re-
main in force, in so far as not inconsistent with this Act ;" thus
leaving the law of Scotland on these important subjects in the
unprecedented and uncertain state of being only to be inferred from
what, to the minds of those whose duty it is to expound it, may
appear consistent or inconsistent with the vague enactments 'of a
bill, the only argument in favour of which used by its advocates out
of the house is, that it may be amended in a future Parliament.
& Because the provisions of this bill are, throughout, so loose and
indefinite, and there is such a complete want of all enactments about
the mode of carrying it into execution, that it appears to us to be
in truth an unlimited delegation to the Court of Session, to accom.
plish by act of Sederunt that which the constitution of our country
requires should be exacted by law.
4. Because, anxious as we are to see the trial by jury introduced
into the supreme civil courts of Scotland, we must think that the
mode of conducting jury trials as proposed by this bill, has a ten.
dewy to defeat that peat object by the evidence its enactments af.
ford, that, in the estimation of the legislature, the judges to whom
the charge of conducting it is to be intrusted are at present incapa.
ble of executing the duty.
For to us it appears, that though the task of preparing jury
causes fa trial is intrusted to the Lords Ordinary, the provision
that they may have recourse for advice and assistance to the Lord
President of the division to which they belong, or to the Lord Chief
Commissioner, strongly insinuates doubts of their capacity to execute
the duty.
We must also be of opinion, that prohibiting the presidents of
either division, to whom,the instruction of the Lords Ordinary is its-
trusted, from conducting a trial by jury for the next three years,
unless in the presence of the Lord Chief Commissioner, or one of
the judges of the Jury Court, can only be construed to be, on the
part of the legislature, a direct declaration of their incapacity to
perform the duty imposed on them, except when aided by the In-
structions of one of those judges, under whom it seems to us to be
enacted that they should for three years serve an apprenticeship.
To us it therefore appears that this proposed mode of uniting the
benefits of jury trial with the ordinary jurisdiction of the court of
session, cannot fail to be attended with the fatal effect of lowering in
the.minds of the people of Scotland that character for talent, Indus-
try, and ability, which the judges presiding over the two Chambers
have so justly and so deservedly acquired, and that it thus tends to
impair their power of rendering service to their country, not only in
the performance of their new duties, but also in the execution of
those !note important duties which they have hitherto discharged
with such credit to themselves.
5. Because, far from agreeing in the propriety of transferring the
jurisdiction of the Consistorial Court of Scotland to the Court of
Session, we feel it our duty to reprobate the measure of abolishing a
court, which for centuries has exercised its jurisdiction with credit
to itself and advantage to the public, at a time when, in the opinion
of every well-informed lawyer, the judges of that court, in the nu-
merous cases of divorces ap lied for by foreigners who bad no per-
manent domicile in have delivered opinions that proved
them to be not only • sound lawyers, but men wbo are incapa-
ble of pronouncing hasty and crude judnts. Whilst, in the
same cases, the decisions of the Court of —mion as a court of ap-
peal, and the instructions they have given to the commissaries on
the subject of collusion, es well as on that of finding that a plain
is entitled to receive redress according to the law of Satiend, if the
jurisdiction of the Court has been established by a summons per-
sonally served on the defender, or by a summons left for him at a
place where be has resided 40 days within that country, has per-
verted the law of Scotland, and introduced rules in practice which
must give rise to the necessity of altering it.
' With these opinions we must protest against the measure of an-
nihilating the Consistoriel Court, to whose merits we are ready to
subecribe, and of tranderring the jurisdiction to she Court of Ses-
sion, from whose conduct we are on this important subject compelled
so withhold our approbation.
Indeed we cannot account for this measure being suggested but on
the ground of giving credit to what is unfortunately too generally
believed in Scotland, that this imps rumet bill which awn alters.
thous in the law of that country se unparalleled in extent, owes its
origin to a scheme for increasing the selectee of the - of the