Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/622

 The British House of Lords in Its Judicial Capacity, г у woolsack; and the other peers—four or five of them—are on the benches near the bar, two on each side of the "gangway," and each with a little table in front of him. Perfect silence reigns; calm and deep peace pervade the atmosphere—whatever may be the tur moil in the litigants' breasts. After a time, the Lord Chancellor rises, and, with slow and deliberate pace, descends to the clerk's table. He begins to read from

Some law lords are habitually minute in setting forth their reasons for arriving at conclusions, and hi marshalling the argu ments by which they fortify their reasons; but other law lords are as habitually terse and reticent, frequently concurring without giving either reasons or argument. The following rule of the House is, how ever, as fixed and immutable as the laws of the Modes and Persians : each peer must

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT FROM OLD PALACE YARD.

his manuscript as soon as he has reached the table: "My Lords, in the case of Smith v. Jones"—and so on to the deliverance of his own opinion on the disputed points. Then he returns to the woolsack, and a law lord rises and reads his opinion, perhaps at some length, but with great clearness and argu mentative force. Then rise in succession the other law lords, each not delivering, but reading his opinion, some giving reasons at length, and others merely concurring in a fewwords with opinions already read.

read, not recite, his judgment from his own written or printed text, and he must read it standing, as if he were addressing the whole House, and not a long array of empty benches. When all the law lords have finished read ing their opinions, the appellant realizes, let us suppose, that they are unanimously in favor of the decision of the lower court— which means the dismissal of the appeal. This being so, the Lord Chancellor rises, but standing by the side of the woolsack, and