★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
1826 July 31
Penal Code
Ch. furies prudential entities
§.
20
This the domain
of fictions
Hitherto. Issue— command we have been in the region of realities.
We are now of necessity transported in to the regions of fictions.
Under the dominion In the domain of common law every
thing is fiction but the power exercised by the Judge.
On each occasion the Judge does it is true issue
a command this command is his decree but this decree
he on every occasion confesses he would not on
any occasion have the power of issuing with effect
were it not for a command general in its extent and
in such sort general as to include and give authority
to this individual of his: —
21
Fictitious command
assumed by Judge on
every occasion
To be what is a command general or individual
must be the command of some person who
in this case is this person as answer. not any
legislator for if it were the law would be a statute
law, a person being necessary if no real one to be
found hence comes the necessity of a fictitious one
this fictitious person is called the common law or
more generally that he may be confounded with the
real person of whose image he is made the law. —
in this proposition
there may be or may
not be a grain of truth
but whether there be
or be not the individual
decree has in both
cases alike the effect
of a law: of a real law
issued by a legislator
avowing himself such
and acknowleged as
such.
To warrant the individual decree which he is
about to pronounce the Judge comes out with so
general a proposition saying in words or in effect
thus saith the law. On the occasion of the issuing of
this sham law the pretext always is that it is but
a copy of a proposition equally general delivered on
some former occasion by some other Judge or train of
successive Judges
A command
|
Identifier: | JB/550/110/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
550 |
|||
|
110 |
|||
|
001 |
|||