The National Register. — 1818-11-01 (London, England)

THE EV JUSTICE.  THE appointment of Mr. Abbot from a Puisne Judgeship, to succeed Lord Ellenbe rough as Chief Justice 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 Constitution 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 people 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 thePlantagenets, 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 liberties ; 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 directly 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.