They gave and they argued
their judgment in open court.[30] Their reasons were publicly given, and
the reasons assigned for their judgment took away all its authority. The
great historian, Lord Clarendon, at that period a young lawyer, has told
us that the Judges gave as law from the bench what every man in the hall
knew not to be law.
This publicity, and this mode of attending the decision with its
grounds, is observed not only in the tribunals where the Judges preside
in a judicial capacity, individually or collectively, but where they are
consulted by the Peers on the law in all _writs of error_ brought from
below. In the opinion they give of the matter assigned as error, one at
least of the Judges argues the questions at large. He argues them
publicly, though in the Chamber of Parliament,--and in such a manner,
that every professor, practitioner, or student of the law, as well as
the parties to the suit, may learn the opinions of all the Judges of all
the courts upon those points in which the Judges in one court might be
mistaken.
Your Committee is of opinion that nothing better could be devised by
human wisdom than argued judgments publicly delivered for preserving
unbroken the great traditionary body of the law, and for marking,
whilst that great body remained unaltered, every variation in the
application and the construction of particular parts, for pointing out
the ground of each variation, and for enabling the learned of the bar
and all intelligent laymen to distinguish those changes made for the
advancement of a more solid, equitable, and substantial justice,
according to the variable nature of human affairs, a progressive
experience, and the improvement of moral philosophy, from those
hazardous changes in any of the ancient opinions and decisions which may
arise from ignorance, from levity, from false refinement, from a spirit
of innovation, or from other motives, of a nature not more justifiable.
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