The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 952: ALTERATIONS IN COURTS OF JUSTICE.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ALTERATIONS IN COURTS OF JUSTICE.

Committees of the house of commons, and the law-commissioners appointed by the crown, had recently found much to blame in the arrangements for the distribution of justice in Wales. In consequence of this an act was passed during the present session abolishing the separate system of Welsh judicature, and annexing the jurisdiction of the Welsh judges to that of the judges of England. By the same bill the number of puisne judges was increased from twelve to fifteen—a new one being added to each of the courts of king’s bench, common pleas, and exchequer. In Scotland, on the other hand, while courts were abolished, the number of judges in the remaining court was diminished by the subtraction of two from its fifteen lords ordinary, or working judges, on whose ability to get through the work depends whether the eight other judges, who sit four and four in two courts of review, shall have judgments brought before them.