Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	court_n	defendant_n	1,397	5	10.0062	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59752	A discourse of the rise & power of parliaments, of law's, of courts of judicature, of liberty, property, and religion, of the interest of England in reference to the desines of France, of taxes and of trade in a letter from a gentleman in the country to a member in Parliament.	Sheridan, Thomas, 1646-ca. 1688.	1677 (1677)	Wing S3225; ESTC R16270	94,234	304

it woud be for the advantage of al That the Parliament woud exert its antient Power In regulating the many Abuses crept into inferior Courts Into which if there was ever need of looking there is now at this day when the complaints are loud By which tho perhaps Mole-hills may be made Mountains Yet al this Smoak cannot be without som Fire This I have bin told for certain That their Iudgments are founded as much upon Rules or interpretations of Statutes of their own pleasure introduc'd by the intrest of Lawyers and Officers as upon the strict letter of the Lawes in which your Education tho not your Practice and your long Observation has made it superfluous for me to particularise the many Irregularities in the administration of Iustice which woud fil a larg Volum But to begin with the Courts I think it were convenient that each of the Four at Westminster shoud be reduced to their antient Practice and not suffered to Encroah upon one another to the Subjects great vexation who often quits his Cause rather than follow it thro al the mazes of the several Courts where at last after som years tossing by Writs of Error c. from Post to Pillar if his mony does but hold out to make the Lawyers that sport he may sit down by his loss or have recours to the Arbitriment of two honest Neighbors which at first had bin the speediest and cheapest way of justice In antient days the Kings Bench intermedled only with the Pleas of the Crown But now an Ac Etiam ushered in by a feignd assertion of Force and Arms and by supposing the Defendant to be in Custodia Marescalli or the Plaintiffe privileg'd som other way in that Court robbs the Common Bench whose jurisdiction even by Magna Charta is of al Common Pleas between Party and Party The Common Bench by practice of Atturneys not to be behind hand has likwise of late days introduced an Ac Etiam and several Debts or Promises are suppos'd with intent to bind the Subject to special Bail wheras I am confident it cannot either by Common or Statute Law be evinced that antiently special Bail or a Capias before Summons was in any action required and that therfore it is a meer invention to get mony and to vex and impoverish the Subject The Exchequer was only to hold Plea of such Actions where the Plaintiff was really indebted to the King and perhaps too not able otherwise to pay it or where the Parties were by their Priviledg to plead or to be impleaded in that Court But now by falsly suggesting They are indebted to the King and not able to pay him but out of the thing in demand they are suffered to su in that Court alleadging a Quo minus c. in their Declaration But before such Irregularities were introduced it was not so much Law as Honesty Prudence and skil in Arithmetick that were the necessary Qualifications of the Barons In which Court a Chancery was erected to moderate the Rigor of the Fines and Amerciaments estreated into that Court and to extend to the Kings Debtors those favors which the Barons coud not shew The Causes then remaining for the High Court of Chancery were the Penalties and Forfeitures between man and man which at Common Law were du and al other Causes that for want of Evidence were no where els tryable But such have bin the mighty contrivance of the Practisers in that Court that they have found out a way for the Trial of al Causes there where notwithstanding a mans pretence in his Bil That he wants Witnesses tho that be but a tric to intitle the Court to the action after he has Obliged the Defendant to swear against himself contrary to the Common Law that of Nature Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum which seems to be the possitive intent of Magna Charta he takes out a Commission to Examin Witnesses In the Civil Law the Complainant if required is obliged as wel as the Defendant to swear the Truth of the Bill and sure that is as fitting to be don in the King 's great Court of Equity and Conscience as in the ordinary Courts of Iustice in other Nations Nor woud it be amiss That al Witnesses shoud in that Court as wel as others give their Testimony Viva voce and that there shoud be som unalterable Rules both for the Officers of the Court and the Clients since Conscience and right Reason are alwayes the same and unalterable which woud prevent the Reversing of Decrees a tacit Confession They were unjust and other Inconveniences too many to be recounted only One is so notorious I cannot pass it by The assuming a Power of Impeaching Iudgements at Common-Law which the Statute declares to be Premunire Another Practice as inconvenient as any is The Iudges giving too great an Authority to a former Iudges Report or Opinion It were to be wish'd That in the rest of the Courts the present Practice of the wise Lord Chancellor Finch were observed who considering That a Report is founded upon such Reasons as are not with the Report convey'd to us that only stating in brief the matter of Fact and that the Case is alterable by any one Accident rightly infers That no Report but the Reason of the present Case squared to the Rules of the Law ought to guide his Iudgment To this may be added That in every Court there shoud be a setled Number of Clerks Attorneys Lawyers as wel as Iudges That these how just soever shoud not continu above three Years in any one Court Whatever the Sherifs Power was formerly sure I am That exercised by the Iudges exceeds what now they are possest of and yet the Wisdom of former Ages thought not fit to intrust the former two years together That they shoud be oblig'd to give an Account in public of al their proceedings at the expiration of the said time That they be under a pecuniary Mulct besides an Oath to administer justice impartially in imitation of God who to mind them of their great Duty graces them with his own Title saying Ye are al. Gods and therfore must do as I do ye shal not regard in judgment the Power of the Mighty nor the Distress of the Poor That the Iudges Lawyers Atturneys and Clarks shoud have out of the public Revenu sufficient establisht Salaries To take no Fees or Gratuity whatsoever directly or indirectly It not seeming reasonable that the people shoud pay any thing for Iustice But as that Charge may be included in the public Taxes That no Offices whatsoever be Sold and nothing but Merit to intitle any man For if Offices be purchased by the interest of Friends or Mony it is unreasonable to expect That Iustice too may not be bought and sold And for this Reason it is as fit to make Laws against this practice in others as against Simony in the Clergy No man to have two Offices or to act by Deputy