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3
Panopticon Bill
XI
Escape
Observations with Answers.
Observations.
Art. 6. This will certainly be objected to as a very dangerous precedent of giving a legislative power
of interpreting the laws to the King's Bench. It is true they exercise this power already: but it is
always under the Controul of a Jury, and many people will be shocked at it when presented to
them under a new form, who now see it every day without observation.
The King's Bench will think you very impertinent in presuming to give them a form for
making their rules.
Answer.
According to my apprehension there was no danger in the case. The declared object, and if I am not
very much mistaken, the effect, of this provision, is not to enlarge legislative power in judicial hands, but to
narrow it. The reasons why the tendency of it appeared to me in that light, are stated in the preamble.
If in any of these reasons there be any thing of mistake, wither in point of fact or in point of inference, I
should be glad to see it pointed out, and ready to correct it: but till that be done, I must conclude the
provision an unexceptionable one, and while I continue to deem it so, I can not assume, as a matter
of course, that it will be excepted to and disapproved by those who are to judge.
In what instance is it that I give a legislative power to the King's Bench? In an instance in
which it is impossible for Parliament to exercise it, and it is for that reason and no other that I transfer
it to the King's Bench from Parliament. As often as I set up a fence, I can shew the plan of it
to the Court of King's Bench, or the fence itself if they think it worth while to look at it. Could
I do this to Parliament?
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Identifier: | JB/119/183/003"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 119. |
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119 |
panopticon |
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183 |
panopticon bill |
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003 |
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copy/fair copy sheet |
4 |
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recto |
d1 f1 / f2 / f3 / f4 |
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39694 |
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