JB/091/156/001

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Jany 1807

Where the soil is rich, if no seed be sown, weeds grow spring
up and cover it in its place. Where no real law has been made, a sort
of sham law grows up in its place. In judicature, every
decision, judgment, rule, order, is insulated and particular: of themselves
millions of them could neither form make a law, nor anything
capable of serving instead of one. But the Judge, when
no sinister interest creates intervenes to create an exception, naturally goes
about to do, as others have done before him: it saves him
the trouble of thinking, saves him from the imputation of partiality,
and from the chance of not having thought having acted without thought, when he
incapable of it.

The object then is to find out a case to such a degree
sinister to the case in hand, that a general proposition may
be framed, framed in such terms that both decisions, viz:
the decision already pronounced in the former case, and the decision
proposed to be pronounced in the case in hand shall
appear to be conformable to it. This done, the decision
pronounced in the case in hand is just exactly to the
effect of the decision which ought to have been would have been proper to be pronounced,
had an article of real law existed, the declared will
of a legitimate legislator, conceived in the terms of the general
proposition thus framed. In this way a rule or an article of
sham law is framed, standing in the place and possessing the
same force and virtue as of an article of real law would have had,
if framed consigned to the same or an equivalent set of words.
These general propositions are what in the language of English
jurisprudence are called dicta, dicta of the Judges.

Identifier: | JB/091/156/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 91.
Date_1	1807-01	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	091	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	156	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c3
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	iping 1804
Marginals		Paper Producer	bernardino rivadavia
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1804
Notes public		ID Number	29152
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