“A Polemic on Jurisprudence”

[frill 2277]

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“A Polemic on Jurisprudence”

OR
Brief Opinion on the Supremacy of the Exact Word of Law.

 

As penned by Lesser Magistrate Eidr Haraqqa, proud Freeman of Ves.

As printed by the Worshipful Guild of Writers of the Golden City of Ves.

AS SO FUNDED by the patrons-of-art of the Worshipful Guild of Writers.

SCRIPTA MANENT

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1st of The Sun’s Smile, 1718.

 

 

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Judges and lesser magistrates, in criminal cases, have no right to interpret the Johannian nor Imperial laws, because they are not legislators of these laws. These magistrates solely receive them from our society actually existing, or from the sovereign, its representative. Even the authority of the Imperial and Johannian laws is not founded on any pretended obligation. The laws receive their force and authority from an oath of fidelity to our good empire, which living subjects have sworn to our Emperor, in order to uphold the rights and impede the infringement of the rights of both legally protected interests of the Empire and the individuals wherein. From this leads the natural authority of the law as sworn.

 

But! Who then is their lawful interpreter? The elect-prince or emperor, that is, the elected or divinated representative of man and thus society, and not the lowly judge, whose office is only to examine through basis of the law, if a man have or have not, committed an action contrary to the laws of our land.

 

There is nothing more dangerous to the integrity of the Imperial and Johannian law than the notion that the “spirit of the laws, and the common belief” is but all that needs to be considered by a judge when ruling in cases of law. To adhere to this adage and forego the due process of law is to give way to the torrent of opinions and render the Imperial and Johannian codes moot and null. This may seem like an astounding inconsistency to the common minds, which are more strongly affected by the smallest disorder before their eyes, than by the consequences produced by one false principle, act or case-law adopted by a nation.

 

The problems that may bubble to the surface of the scholarly-minded from a rigorous observance of the letter of the Imperial and Johannian penal codes, are not to be compared with those produced by the fallacious and loose interpretation of them as insisted by lay-men and inexperienced judges alike. The first are fleeting follies of problems, which will oblige the Emperor to correct the letter of the law.

 

When the penal code is therefore fixed and defined further, it should be observed in the most literal of senses possible by a magistrate or judge, and no action more remains for this judge than to determine, whether an action be, or be not, contrary to the written law of our lands.

 

When the right rule of law and the true and defined nature of the criminal codes in which all persons of each realm are duly bound, which ought to govern the actions of the noblest of man and the common farm-folk alike, is a matter of controversy, not of fact, the people are slaves to the whim of the magistrates.

 

As was both written and set,

 

Eidr Haraqqa.

 

 

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