He says: 'Judges may receive presents from parties when they are
given them either for friendship's sake, or in gratitude for some
former act of justice, or to induce them to give justice in future, or
to oblige them to pay particular attention to their case, or to engage
them to despatch it promptly.' The learned Escobar delivers himself to
the same effect: 'If there be a number of persons, none of whom have
more right than another to have their causes disposed of, will the
judge who accepts of something from one of them, on condition-
expacto- of taking up his cause first, be guilty of sin? Certainly
not, according to Layman; for, in common equity, he does no injury
to the rest by granting to one, in consideration of his present,
what he was at liberty to grant to any of them he pleased; and
besides, being under an equal obligation to them all in respect of
their right, he becomes more obliged to the individual who furnished
the donation, who thereby acquired for himself a preference above
the rest- a preference which seems capable of a pecuniary valuation-
quae obligatio videtur pretio aestimabilis.'"
"May it please your reverence," said I, "after such a
permission, I am surprised that the first magistrates of the kingdom
should know no better. For the first president has actually carried an
order in Parliament to prevent certain clerks of court from taking
money for that very sort of preference- a sign that he is far from
thinking it allowable in judges; and everybody has applauded this as a
reform of great benefit to all parties.
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