The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-26


unalloyed satisfaction.
The new article makes many changes in
our Judicial system, and some of them pro-
missing wholesome and enduring reforms in
the administration of Justice in this State,
and especially in this city. The first of these
changes to be noted is that relating to the
organization of the Court of Appeals. This
Court will hereafter consist of Chief Justice
and six Associates. They will be elected
next spring for fourteen years. Only the
Chief Justice and four Associates can be
voted for by any one elector, thus giving to
the minority two members of the Court All
cases pending in the Court of Appeals on the
1st of January, 1869, and which remain unde-
termined on the organization of the new
Court, will be heard by Commission, COM
posed of the four present Judges of the Court
of Appeals, who have been elected or ap-
pointed thereto, and fifth Commissioner,
appointed by the Governor, by and with the
advice of the Senate, if that be in session, or
if it be not, to hold Office only until the end
of the next session. -Four of the five shall
constitute a quorum. 1t now takes about
five years to carry suit through the court.
This commission will afford instant relief,
and will prove of the greatest benefit to
honest itigants, whose entire funds have
hitherto, in not few instances, been locked
up in the court. Many of such cases would,
indeed, never have been taken there at all,
but for the certainty that the party really en-
titled to the funds or property in dispute may
be kept deprived of it for at least that period.
1t is believed that the new court, as now con-
stituted, will be able to dispose with prompt
ness of all business that may come before it,
and that no future accumulation OF delay need
occur.
The new article also provides that, in 1873
it shall be submitted to the people of the
xUh md hall baraaftnr
tinue to be elected, or be appointed by
the Governor. But the great and sweeping
reform wrought by the article relates to the
organization and practice of the Supreme
Court. Under the present Constitution, the
Judges have been in the habit of reviewing
their own decisions. This practice was sub
ject to great abuse, and came to be regarded
as an unmitigated nuisance and wrong. The
Court is composed of thirty-three Judges;
each of the eight judicial districts electing
four, and the first of these districts, consist
ing of the city and county of New York,
electing five. General Terms, held by not
less than three Judges, sit in the several dis
tricts to hear and determine appeals from
their own decisions, made at Circuit or
Special Term. 1t is true that each particular
decision is reviewed not only by the judge
who originally made it, but by his two asso-
ciates; but the best judges imperceptibly
fall into the habit of sustaining each other
and being sustained in turn. This abuse has
been carried on to such an extent, in this
city, as virtually to abrogate the right of
appeal. All this, however, is swept away by
the new article, which declares the absolute
disability of a judge to sit in review of his
own decision, or that of any Court of which
he was a member. The present judges of the
Court will serve out the term for which they
were elected, and the future term is to be
fourteen years. We are not surprised that
the judicial rings of this city did their utmost
to defeat the adoption of the new article, for
their continued existence depended upon that
defeat.
Instead of eight General Terms, which we
now have, only SO many are to be organized
as may be deemed necessary to dispose Of the
appeal cases from Circuit and Special Terms
Three of them will probably be ample, for the
reason that they will be confined to this one
branch of judicial duty. The selection of
Judges who shall hold these terms is to be in
pursuance of a law which the next Legisla-
ture is required to enact for the purpose
and they will be designated from the
whole body of thirty three. While
therefore, we shall have a General
Term almost always sitting in New York
or Brooklyn, it does not follow that the
judges holding it shall be selected exclusively
from these districts This arrangement can
hardly fail to restore the reign of law in
the Supreme Court, and to break up the
judicial rings in this city, of which there has
been such bitter and frequent complaint.
| When suitor can have an immediate appeal
| from the rash and inconsiderats, not to say
corrupt action of single judge, to an inde-
| pendent and upright court, the unwarrantable
orders with which we have become so familiar
will cease to be useful to the parties in whose
interest they have ordinarily been made.
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