The wreck and fragments of our cause (which has been dashed to pieces upon rules by which your Lordships have thought fit to regulate its progress) await your final determination.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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Whenever an occasion shall be regularly given to maintain everything of substance in that paper, I shall be ready to meet the proudest name for ability, learning, or rank that this kingdom contains, upon that subject.
It is very true that we were and are extremely dissatisfied with those opinions, and the consequent determinations of the Lords; and we do not think such a mode of proceeding at all justified by the most numerous and the best precedents.
We ought to animadvert upon any of our members who abuse the trust we place in them; we must support those who, without regard to consequences, perform their duty.
If the power of the House of Commons be degraded or enervated, no other can stand.
It is necessary to preserve the dignity and respect of all the constitutional authorities.
I am of opinion, with the eminent person by whom that Report is censured, that it is necessary at this time very particularly that the authority of Judges should be preserved and supported.
The matters contained in it, and the observations upon them, are submitted to the wisdom of the House, that you may act upon both in the time and manner that to your judgment may seem most expedient,--or that you may not act upon them at…
For anything improper in that Report I am responsible, as well as the members of the Committee, to this House, and to this House only.
I do not justify it; but the abuse is now grown so inveterate that to punish it without previous notice would have an appearance of hardship, if not injustice.
All our proceedings have been constantly published, according to the discretion and ability of individuals out of doors, with impunity, almost ever since I came into Parliament.
Having mentioned that act as one happy consequence of the Revolution, he addeth,--"However injuriously that revolution hath been traduced, whatever attempts have been made to subvert this happy establishment founded on it, your Lordships…
But in a trial of a peer in full Parliament, or, to speak with legal precision, before the King in Parliament, for a capital offence, whether upon impeachment or indictment, the case is quite otherwise.
The authority of this court, or, if I may use the expression, its constant activity for the ends of public justice, independent of any special powers derived from the Crown, is not doubted in the case of writs of error from those courts of…
This court is founded upon immemorial usage, upon the law and custom of Parliament, and is part of the original system of our Constitution.
Because unusual mystery and secrecy in our judicial proceedings must tend either to discredit the acquittal of the prisoner, or render the justice of his condemnation doubtful.
But with regard to the Lords, there is no remedy for error, no punishment for a wilful wrong.
If they wilfully err in the rejection of evidence, there was formerly the terror existing of punishment by impeachment of the Commons.
This final and independent judicature, because it is final and independent, ought to be very cautious with regard to the rejection of evidence.
The Judges, therefore, of necessity, must forestall the evidence, where there is a doubt on its competence, and indeed observe much on its credibility, or the most dreadful consequences might follow.
They have generally no previous preparation, or possible knowledge of the matters to be tried, or what is applicable or inapplicable to them; and they decide in a space of time too short for any nice or critical disquisition.
In the trials below, the Judges decide on the competency of the evidence before it goes to the jury, and (under the correctives, in the use of their discretion, stated before in this Report) with great propriety and wisdom.
But it is plain there may be perjury in witnesses, or even conspiracy unjustly to prosecute, without the least doubt of the legality and regularity of the proceedings in any part.
Undoubtedly the state ought not to be weighed against justice; but it would be dreadful indeed, if causes of such importance should be sacrificed to petty regulations, of mere secondary convenience, not at all adapted to such concerns, nor…
In such a cause the state itself is highly concerned in the event: on the other hand, the prisoner may lose life, which all the wealth and power of all the states in the world cannot restore to him.
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