EXTRACT FROM SPEECH ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND. HOUSE OF LORds-August 6, 1839. IF there be any one thing which more than another deserves the anxious attention of this House, above all other tribunals, it is the thing, whatever it may be, that touches the function peculiarly appertaining to this assembly, this supreme judicature, this highest court of justice in the kingdom. Whoever has practised in our courts,-whoever has presided over them, -whoever has observed the mode in which the judicial business is carried on,-whoever has meditated on the constitution of these realms, as regards its executive, legislative, and judicial branches, must be prepared to say, with me, that, of all the branches of our polity, the pure, correct, and inflexible administration of justice is by far the most important. It is this great power, this prodigious clamp, which binds all the parts of our vast social structure together. It is this great solid belt, which guards and strengthens our whole system, our great pyramid,-formed as it is, of various and of discrepant materials, in shape and size differing from the lowest and broadest to the most exalted and the most narrow. As long as that mighty zone which connects the upper and lower parts, while it strengthens the whole edifice, remains unimpaired, you may well disregard all the perils with which the constitution can be threatened, in what quarter soever its assailants may be found, or against what part they may point their attacks. Let the Crown have all the lust of power that can inflame a tyrant-give it a venal House of Lords-give it an obsequious House of Commons- give it a corrupt Court, and a people dead to the love of freedom,-from the King's Court at Windsor, I will appeal to the King's Courts at Westminster; thither I will flee for safety, to the remains of liberty, and, in the sacred temple of justice, I shall find the indestructible palladium of the constitution. Or let the danger come from another quarter. Let there be a vacillating House of Commons, a Parliament in which the people's representatives know not their own minds, dare not declare any firm or fixed opinion, but mutter resolutions which they cannot articulate-voting, now this way, by a narrow majority, and now that, by no larger a balance, -let the force of the constitution, thus neutralized in the one House, be concentrated in the other, so that the Lords shall seem to rule the whole, the mixed monarchy to be gone, the balance long vaunted to be at length destroyed, and an aristocracy to be all but planted in its stead,—still, against the corruptions of oligarchy and the insolence of patrician domination, I seek for shelter to liberty and protection to right, in the impregnable bulwark of judicial power. Or, again: if the danger should threaten from another quarter,the quarter whence, certainly, it is the least to be dreaded,—if the pressure should come from the swelling, and loosening, and cracking of the foundations,if the "fierce democratie" should wield unsafely its powers, if the outrages of popular violence should assail the fabric,-to its wild waves I will oppose the judicial system as a rock against which the surge may dash-and must dash in vain. Of that judicial system, the assembly which I now address is emphatically the guardian; with that administration of justice, this House is eminently, and in the last resort, entrusted by the constitution; and to you, therefore, my Lords, it is, that I now earnestly make my solemn appeal. In all the difficulties of our country, in all her perils, she looks to you with the best hopes for preserving the judicial power by which she may surely be saved. As often as any attempts can be perceived to break down this barrier, the growth of ages,-attempts slowly and gradually made, and, it may be, made without evil design,-for, in the present instance, I impute no bad intention, nor anything more than indiscretion, or excess of feelings in themselves harmless, nor do I even suspect any unkindly or unamiable disposition,still the inroad must be resisted in the outset, and a solemn authoritative declaration from your Lordships must loudly promulgate the sacred principles which have been violated, and sternly warn against a repetition of the fault. Wherefore it is, that I have deemed it my duty to press upon you the adoption of the resolutions which I now submit to your calm and deliberate consideration; and, on behalf of the British constitution,-bound up, as it is, in the pure administration of justice,-I implore your Lordships, this night, to pronounce upon them your decision of affirmance. I move you, * "That it is the duty of the executive Government, when considering any case of conviction had before any of the King's judges, with a view to remitting or commuting the sentence, to apply for information to the judge or judges who tried the case, and to afford such judge or judges an opportunity of giving their opinion on such case, unless circumstances should exist which render any such application impossible, or only possible with an inconvenient delay; but that it is not necessary that the executive Government should be bound to follow the advice, if any, tendered by such judge or judges: * These were the third and fourth resolutions referred to in the concluding passage of the speech. |