Question: When was the governing body with the power to remove a Justice of the court of criminal appeals able to pass legislation that authorized a transcontinental railroad?

As with the former Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, appeals from many fields of law are likely to be selected for hearing, including commercial disputes, family matters, judicial review claims against public authorities and issues under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Supreme Court's focus is on cases that raise points of law of general public importance. The Supreme Court also hears some criminal appeals, but not from Scotland, as there is no general right of appeal from the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland's highest criminal court, other than with respect to devolution issues. <SEP> the gould transcontinental system was a system of railroads assembled by george jay gould i and the fuller syndicate in the early 1900s. this was gould's attempt to fulfill a goal of his late father, financier jay gould. due to financial troubles following the panic of 1907, the system was never completed as a fully transcontinental line. <SEP> in 2006, a toxic waste spill off the coast of côte d'ivoire, from a european ship, prompted the commission to look into legislation against toxic waste. environment commissioner stavros dimas stated that "such highly toxic waste should never have left the european union". with countries such as spain not even having a crime against shipping toxic waste, franco frattini, the justice, freedom and security commissioner, proposed with dimas to create criminal sentences for "ecological crimes". the competence for the union to do this was contested in 2005 at the court of justice resulting in a victory for the commission. that ruling set a precedent that the commission, on a supranational basis, may legislate in criminal law – something never done before. so far, the only other proposal has been the draft intellectual property rights directive. motions were tabled in the european parliament against that legislation on the basis that criminal law should not be an eu competence, but was rejected at vote. however, in october 2007, the court of justice ruled that the commission could not propose what the criminal sanctions could be, only that there must be some. <SEP> The term`` good behavior'' is understood to mean justices may serve for the remainder of their lives, unless they are impeached and convicted by Congress, resign, or retire. The Constitution provides that justices ``shall hold their offices during good behavior ''(unless appointed during a Senate recess). Only one justice has been impeached by the House of Representatives (Samuel Chase, March 1804), but he was acquitted in the Senate (March 1805). Moves to impeach sitting justices have occurred more recently (for example, William O. Douglas was the subject of hearings twice, in 1953 and again in 1970; and Abe Fortas resigned while hearings were being organized in 1969), but they did not reach a vote in the House. No mechanism exists for removing a justice who is permanently incapacitated by illness or injury, but unable (or unwilling) to resign. <SEP> The original Act's long title was An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes. It was based largely on a proposed bill originally reported six years earlier on August 16, 1856, to the 34th Congress by the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph. Section 2 of the Act granted each Company contiguous rights of way for their rail lines as well as all public lands within 200 feet (61 m) on either side of the track. Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862, the 1862 Act authorized extensive land grants in the Western United States and the issuance of 30 - year government bonds (at 6 percent) to the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad (later the Southern Pacific Railroad) companies in order to construct a continuous transcontinental railroad between the eastern side of the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa (opposite from Omaha, Nebraska) and the navigable waters of the Sacramento River in Sacramento, California.