Civilization in the United States: An inquiry by thirty Americans
General
Civilization in the United States: An inquiry by thirty Americans
United States -- Civilization
perjure themselves, do they ingratiate themselves with workmen to
defeat subsequent accident suits? Statistics, personal interviews with
judges and physicians, and examination of the stenographic records of
trials ought to give valuable assistance in determining which half of
the States has the better rule.
Since law reform requires highly organized group action, some
individual should be charged with the responsibility of organization.
At present, it is everybody’s business. Judges are hearing cases
all day and writing opinions at night, and they have no legislative
position as in England, where they can draft bills and present them in
the House of Lords. Individual lawyers carry little weight. The Bar
Associations have accomplished much, but the work of their members
is done without pay in the intervals of practice, and they have no
official standing. The Attorney General is necessarily a partisan,
representing the State’s side in litigation, with neither the time
nor the duty to improve the law in general. The United States and
the larger States badly need a Minister of Justice. All complaints
of legal inefficiency would come to him, and he would be constantly
collecting statistics of the cases in the courts and their social
consequences, observing procedure personally, or through a corps of
expert assistants, conferring with the judges and the Bar Associations,
drafting or examining measures affecting the administration of justice
and giving his opinion about them to the legislature, and charged
with the general duty of ascertaining whether every person can find
a certain remedy from the laws for all injuries or wrongs, obtaining
right and justice freely and without purchase, completely and without
denial, promptly and without delay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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