The jurist, therefore, in a matter of criminal adjudication,
entirely loses sight of the personal conditions of the accused,
and the social conditions of the community, and confines his
attention to the deed, and to the maxims of a so-called
retributive justice. They who are called upon to try criminals
ought to possess the ideas necessary to the natural study of a
criminal man, and should therefore constitute an order of
magistrates wholly distinct from that of civil judges.
<p 174>
The practical means of securing this fundamental reform of the
judicial bench ought to begin with the organisation of the
university, for in the courses of the faculty of law it will be
necessary to introduce a more vigorous and modern stream of social
and anthropological studies, which must also eventually put new
life into the ancient maxims of the civil law.
In the second place, law students at the university ought to be
admitted to what Ellero called a science of clinical criminology,
that is to interviews with and systematic observations of
prisoners. The first Congress of Criminal Anthropology approved
the proposal of M. Tarde, upon the following motion of Moleschot-
Ferri:--``The Congress, in agreement with the scientific tendency
of criminal anthropology, is of opinion that prison authorities,
whilst taking necessary precautions for internal discipline, and
for the individual rights of condemned prisoners, should admit to
the clinical study of criminals all professors and students of
penal law and legal medicine, under the direction and
responsibility of their own professors, and if possible in the
character of societies for the aid of actual and discharged
prisoners.''
Lastly, a special school should be founded for policemen and
prison warders, with the object of securing detectives
distinguished not only for their personal ability, but also for
their knowledge of criminal biology and psychology.
To these reforms, which guarantee the scientific capacity of the
criminal judge, we must add reforms which would secure his
complete independence of <p 175>the executive authority, which is
now the only authority responsible for the advancement and
allocation of judges. But this independence would not be exempt
from every kind of control, such as public opinion, and
disciplinary authority to some extent distinct from the
_personnel_ of the bench; for otherwise the judicial authority
would soon become another form of insupportable tyranny.
The most effectual mode of securing the independence of the judges
is to improve their position in life. For admitting that a fixed
stipend, payable every month, makes a man content with a somewhat
lower figure, still it is certain that in these days, with a few
honourable exceptions, the selection of judges is not
satisfactory, because low salaries only attract such as could not
earn more by the practice of their profession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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