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Mr. Brougham, in the session of parliament following that in which this bill was introduced, accepted a peerage-he then introduced his measure in the House of Lords. That session and the one ensuing were occupied exclusively with parliamentary reform. In the meantime, the Common Law Commissioners were directed to report on the inferior tribunals. They did so, and it is upon their suggestions that the county courts have been ultimately established. Lord Brougham's bill, after all its details had been settled, was on the third reading thrown out by a majority of two.

Their

The Common Law Commissioners were directed to inquire into the practice and proceedings of the local and inferior courts. report was laid before Parliament in the beginning of 1833. They found these tribunals to consist of

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4. Peculiar local courts (such as the Palace Court lately abolished).

5. Courts of certain Boroughs.

6. Courts created by modern Acts of Parliament, including Courts of Request.

Of the jurisdiction as to debts and demands of the old COUNTY COURTS we have already spoken. Their jurisdiction in determining rights of property was by the Commissioners reported to be obsolete. But in causes tried there witnesses were sometimes obliged to travel immense distances, and defendants often paid an unjust demand rather than incur the expense of a defence, and the loss of time consequent on an attendance on the court. The judge (for the under-sheriff was virtually the judge) was changed almost annually. The costs of a suit were sometimes exorbitant, 71. or 81. being ordinarily the necessary expense for recovering 40s. The suit was commenced by a seizure of the defendant's goods, which was of no other use than to produce a fee to the officer, and did not serve the intended purpose of giving the party notice of the action. The pleadings in point of length and expense fell little short of those in the superior courts, while they were attended with the further disadvantage of being open to numerous formal and clerical objections, which by many wholesome statutes had been previously excluded from the superior courts. The attendance of witnesses could not be sufficiently enforced, and goods fraudulently removed into another county to avoid execution could not be recovered.

The Commissioners reported that these courts were "'inefficient for the administration of justice, and the subject of general complaint."

The HUNDRED COURTS were reported to labour under the same or even greater defects. The objectionable system of attachment of the defendant's goods and the exorbitance of the costs were crying evils; while the jurisdiction of some of them which had been increased by the legislature was considered to have been so increased with very little advantage to the public.

The PALACE COURT, say the Commissioners, "has long been found to be a very useful and effectual court for the trial of causes below the amount of 201." It was by far the best of the inferior courts. Judgments were obtained speedily and execution followed immediately. The plaintiff's costs varied from 8l. to 107., the defendant's from 61. to 8.; the whole costs were recovered from the unsuccessful party, and the average time which a suit remained in this court was five weeks. It was abolished by one of the New County Court Statutes.

The COURTS of many BOROUGHS were found to be useful-those of many others useless or disused. Their jurisdiction was generally unlimited. One vice attended the courts in London, that only a few privileged attorneys (and barristers also it might have been added) were allowed to practise. This abuse has not yet been remedied, but it cannot exist much longer.

The COURTS OF REQUEST or COURTS OF CONSCIENCE were open to the decided objection of the judges being in general Commissioners possessing neither the ability nor the learning necessary for the office. Suspicions were entertained of their impartiality. The too great facility of getting execution encouraged the giving of credit to an undue extent, and the power of imprisonment operated most distressingly and injuriously, defendants having been sometimes several weeks in prison for a debt of 1s. 6d. or 2s.

After tracing shortly the history of the old schyremotes, and referring to the opinions of Sir Matthew Hale, and to the establishment of courts of conscience, the Commissioners report the inadequacy of the superior courts to administer justice effectually in actions inconsiderable in their nature. (1.) Ön account of the delay; (2.) on account of the expense; and (3.) on account of the practice to refuse new trials in suits under 201. "With respect to causes of action extending from the sum of 40s. to 207. (say the Commissioners), neither the superior nor the inferior courts afford any adequate remedy." The report further states, that the inadequacy of the present courts (in actions of the nature above referred to) amounts almost to a denial of justice :-creditors are obliged to abandon their just demands ;-debtors are tempted to a dishonest resistance;-and the result is great injury to public morals and to private rights.

It was also the opinion of the Commissioners, that the defects of the then existing inferior courts were so numerous and so complicated, that it would be easier to devise new institutions than to introduce effectual improvements in them. They therefore recommended the division of the kingdom into districts, the courts of which should be held at the various towns thereof, which should best suit the public convenience; the limits of the districts being dependant on the extent and exigences of the population, and the number of courts to be held, on the number and importance also, in point of population and otherwise, of the principal towns. The distance apart of the places where courts were to be held, was also to be taken into account.

The Commissioners recommended that the new courts should have

jurisdiction in personal actions to the extent of 207.; but that they should not be competent to try questions in which title to land was involved. It was proposed, in order to remedy the trouble, delay, and expense, which landlords were obliged to incur to recover possession of small holdings, that the new courts should have power to award possession, after the expiration of the tenants' leases, where the rent did not exceed 201.

The want of adequate means to recover small legacies was much felt. The procedures for doing so in the Ecclesiastical Courts and in Chancery were ineffectual and ruinous. A partial remedy was recommended by a proposition to enable legatees to sue executors in the intended new courts.

It was also recommended, that the jurisdiction of these courts should be confined to the limits of their district; that the times of holding them should be under the direction of some competent authority; that the jurisdiction should also be exclusive; that the judges should be persons of learning and experience, the tenure of their office permanent, and themselves excluded from practice.

Various other recommendations were made by the Commissioners, as to making suits local, and in reference also to the fees to be payable on proceedings, the officers to execute process, and the nature and requisites of the formal proceedings to be taken by the parties.

Several merely technical rules of law as to the non-joinder or mis-joinder of parties to a suit, the effects of which were generally merely to create expense and to delay justice, it was recommended that the judge should have power to dispense with, by amending the proceedings in court. The summoning of witnesses and of jurymen, the qualification of the latter, and the power of the judge to grant a new trial, were to be provided for, and an appeal was to be allowed in certain cases.

A great many of these suggestions have been adopted in the various statutes by which the county courts are constituted.

In the same year in which these recommendations were made, an Act was passed for the amendment of the law, one of the chief provisions of which was, that suits for sums not exceeding 201. should henceforth be tried by the sheriff, or before the judge of any court of record in the county where the action was brought. It has been decided since the establishment of the county courts (which are made courts of record), that writs of trial under this statute cannot be directed to them. Trials may now proceed before the sheriff, where the sum sued for is not more than 207.; but the system has been found to be attended with much disadvantage. The judges (the under-sheriff's) have not been found competent to the duties assigned them, and now that the county courts have jurisdiction to the extent of 50/., writs of trial will if not obsolete.

become rare,

It was naturally anticipated that the recommendations of the Common Law Commissioners would be carried into immediate effect by the establishment of local courts. Accordingly, while there is only one statute creating a court of request in the 2, 3 and 4

Wm. IV., no acts were passed for that purpose in the 4 & 5 and 5 & 6 Wm. IV. But nothing followed on the report, and it appears that between the 5 & 6 Wm. IV. and the 9 & 10 Vict., no less than 49 statutes were procured for the amendment of existing or the creation of new local tribunals.

It need scarcely be added, that all the expense of these statutes was rendered nugatory by their summary repeal by the Act establishing the county courts.

The statute

In 1844 arrest for debt under 201. was abolished. by which this was effected (7 & 8 Vict. c. 96) enabled, however, the Commissioners of courts of request and other inferior courts to appoint qualified judges, one of the provisions of the statute permitting the imprisonment of fraudulent debtors upon certificate of the barrister or attorney-at-law who should have tried it, if the suit were heard before such barrister or attorney as the judge of an inferior tribunal. This power of imprisonment was more useful as a menace than otherwise; and but few qualified judges were appointed. Besides it was necessary to make provisions for the payment of the judges-a matter often of difficulty. It was soon discovered, however, by the officials, that though the fees of their existing procedure would not afford the means of providing and paying a judge, the fees of an extended jurisdiction might be made to do so an object sought to be obtained by the Act for "better securing the payment of small debts.'

By this statute (8 & 9 Vict. c. 127) powers were given to imprison fraudulent or perverse debtors against whom judgments had been recovered :-the Queen was authorised to increase the jurisdiction of inferior courts to suits for 207., and to extend the limits also of the jurisdiction of those courts that had qualified judges;-in certain cases also to appoint judges to such courts as did not already possess them. A few additional professional judges were in consequence procured under the former statute; in most instances, however, the appointment was delayed until the jurisdiction of the court itself should be enlarged. Before new statutes could be procured, the intention of the government to pass a general act became known by their refusal to extend jurisdictions or appoint judges, and the 9 & 10 Vict. c. 95, shortly afterwards became law, in August 1846.

The new county courts were established, and jurisdiction_given them in suits for sums not exceeding 207., by this statute. It was amended by the 12 & 13 Vict. c. 101, which made some regulations as to the prisons to be used by the new courts, abolished the Palace Court, and made provisions for the framing of rules of practice and forms of procedure for the new courts; the rules and forms then in use in the courts, and which had been prepared by certain judges of the supreme courts under the first statute, having been found inefficient. The jurisdiction in matters of debt or damage was finally, by the 13 & 14 Vict. c. 61, extended to include suits for 50%., and, by consent of the litigants, actions for any amount whatever. By the last statute, above mentioned, some defects in matters of detail were likewise removed; and an appeal

in suits for sums above 201. to two judges of the supreme courts, sitting apart after the regular terms at Westminster, was given to a dissatisfied litigant.

The first statute also transferred to the new county courts a jurisdiction in certain replevin suits, previously exercised by the old county courts, but practically in the courts of Westminster, to which such suits were almost invariably removed. It also gave to the county court judges power to award possession to landlords of premises, the rent of which did not exceed 50l., in all cases where the tenant's lease had expired or been determined, and he refused or delayed to quit. It further enabled the judges to determine by a process called interpleader, the right of property in goods taken in execution by the officer of the court, and to which third parties set upa claim; and also to commit to prison debtors against whom judgment had been given, and who, having the means or opportunity, perversely refused or delayed, or where the debt had been improperly incurred, simply delayed to satisfy the creditor. The powers for the imprisonment of fraudulent debtors conferred by the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 127, were transferred to the judges of the county courts by 10 & 11 Vict. c. 102, which statute also transferred to them the jurisdiction in insolvency, previously exercised by the Commissioners of the London Insolvent Court, who for that purpose had made circuits through England. The powers of the courts of bankruptcy (under what are called "the Protection Acts,") to relieve insolvents from arrest, were by the same statute vested in the county courts. The jurisdiction so transferred was over insolvents only who resided more than 20 miles from London. Certain limited powers to take examinations in matters cognizable in Courts of Equity, had been given by the first statute establishing the county courts. The Joint Stock Companies Winding-up Act (12 & 13 Vict. c. 108) conferred trifling additional powers on the judges who held courts in towns at a distance of 20 miles from the capital. The Friendly Societies Act (13 & 14 Vict. c. 115) enables matters in dispute between members of such societies to be referred to, and finally settled by, the county courts judges of the district, who have also under a statute of last session (14 & 15 Vict. c. 52.), except in the counties of Middlesex and Surrey, power to commit temporarily to prison debtors who are about to abscond. These are the different statutes by which the powers of the county courts have been from time to time conferred and increased. During the last session more than one bill was introduced, and one conferring powers on the Lord Chancellor to appoint the county court judges masters in Chancery passed both Houses, but some of the Commons' amendments not being approved of, it was sacrificed in the House of Lords on the last day of the session. It is thought that the county courts will ere long have jurisdiction in bankruptcy, as they now have in insolvency:-that they will superintend all the smaller charities in England (those whose incomes do not exceed 30l. annually are said to exceed 20,000 in number), a superintendance at present exercised by the court of Chancery: —and that in the county courts will also in due time be admi

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