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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Lord St Helens. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Bentham to Lord St Helens.

“Q. S. P., 4th January, 1808.

“My Lord,—

On speaking, t’other day, with a common friend of your lordship’s and mine, on the subject of an as yet unpublished tract, on the subject of the Scotch Judicature Reform—‘I was mentioning it, (says he,) to Lord St Helens, who thereupon took notice that you had not sent him one.’ Ambitious of construing the remark in my own favour, I herewith take the liberty of supplying the omission, if such it was.

“Before the week is at an end, I hope to be able to take the further liberty of submitting to your Lordship, as well as to every other lord of parliament, a closely-printed sheet, containing a summary view of a Plan of a Judicatory, under the name of the Court of Lords’ Delegates,* for making that branch of the legislature, in imitation of the king, to administer by other hands, (parts of its own not excluded,) that justice which, for such a length of time it has been confessedly unable to render by its own. The plan has had the benefit of a revisal from the friends whom you may imagine.

“All this, even this all, might, without loss, have been spared. But the fact is, that I stood in need of a quid pro quo: and that the article herewith sent, how small soever may be its value, is consigned to your lordship upon a commercial adventure. Your lordship used, in former days at least, to be a frequent attendant on Privy Councils. I remember your speaking of some occurrences that had passed on some of those occasions. For the purpose of a table that I am constructing—a Table of Scales of Jurisdiction—I stand in need of a fact known to everybody but myself, in relation to the actual (in contradistinction to the formal) composition of those Judicatories.

“I understand from an intelligent friend, that however it may be in point of right, in point of fact it is not usual for any member of the Privy Council to attend on any judicial occasion on which he has not received a special summons. This, of course, places the judicatory of the Privy Council pro tanto upon a footing with the Court of King’s Delegates: the members of the judicatory nominated on each occasion pro hac vice. If so, then comes the question—by whom nominated? The King’s Delegates are nominated by the Lord Chancellor, viz. under two statutes of the 24th and 25th of Henry VIII.: here, then, there can be no secret. By parity of reason, there should be as little of a secret about the actual nomination of the King’s Delegates in the case where they are taken exclusively out of that Privy Council.

“The summonses that are sent round—are they signed by the President? If so, he may then be fairly considered as Chancellor in that behalf, sitting before the curtain. Are they signed only by a clerk, by order of the Board? Then the Chancellor, who sits ad hoc, sits behind the curtain.

“One of these summonses, if your lordship happens to have any one of those papers unburnt, and that any servant could lay his hands on, would, in this case, if transmitted to this your petitioner, render unnecessary any further trouble; if not, then it is that he is reduced to the necessity of begging the favour of a line in answer, presuming that the communication of a matter of fact known to everybody but the hermit of the hermitage above-mentioned, would not be a breach of a Privy Councillor’s oath.—Believe me to be, with great respect,” &c., &c.

[* ] Vide Works, vol. v. p. 55.