TITLE 4.––OF THE JUDICIARY DEPARTMENT.

 

CHAPTER XII.

 

§815.  In order to conduct with certainty and system, the judicial power, and that the Government may be administered in accordance with law and justice, there shall be a department, to be styled the Judiciary Department, which shall be presided over by the Chief Justice and Chancellor of the Kingdom, whose duty it shall be to make a report to the Legislature, at each regular session thereof, of the business of said department, and the administration of justice throughout the Kingdom.

 

§816.  Said department, and the several judges and other judicial officers thereof, shall, in all respects, be independent of both the executive and legislative departments.  The King shall have no power to interfere with, alter, or overrule any judgment or decision of any judge, or other judicial officer; provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent His Majesty from granting reprieves and pardons, after conviction, for all offenses, except in cases of impeachment. 

 

§817.  The judicial power of the Kingdom is vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Legislature may, from time to time, establish.

 

§818.  No person holding a seat on the Bench of the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court, or any Police or District Court, or any Police or District Court, shall be eligible to a seat in the House of Representatives of this Kingdom. 

 

§819.  The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, any law of this Kingdom, and treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and to all cases arising under the law of nations.

 

§820.  No person shall sit as judge in any case in which his relative is interested, either as plaintiff or defendant, or in the issue of which the said judge, either directly or through a relative, may have any pecuniary interest.  Neither shall any judge sit alone on an appeal, or new trial, in any case in which he may have given a previous judgment.

 

§821.  No Judge of the Supreme or any Circuit Court, shall exercise the profession or employment of counsel or attorney, or be engaged in the practice of law, and no judge of any other court shall be employed, nor allowed to appear as counsel or attorney before any court, in any suit which shall have been previously tried before him.

 

§822.  All questions of law arising in any civil cause shall be decided by the court or judge before whom the matter is pending; and the instructions of such court or judge in relation to the law shall be binding upon the jury, if any be impanelled in the cause.

 

§823.  The several courts may cite and adopt the reasonings and principles of the admiralty, maritime, and common law of the other countries, and also of the Roman or civil law, so far as the same may be founded in justice, and not in conflict with the laws and customs of this Kingdom.

 

§824.  The several courts of record shall have power to decide for themselves the constitutionality and binding effect of the law, ordinance, order or decree, enacted or put forth by the King, the Legislature, the Cabinet, or Privy Council.  The Supreme Court shall have the power to declare null and void any such law, ordinance, order or decree, as may upon mature deliberation appear to it contrary to the Constitution, or opposed to the laws of nations, or any subsisting treaty with a foreign power.

 

§825.  The several courts, in their decisions, shall have due regard to vested rights.

 

§826.  The several courts of record, in term time, and the respective justices thereof, at chambers, shall have power summarily to commit for trial any party appearing to the satisfaction of such court or justice, to have committed perjury in any trial or proceeding had before the same.

 

 

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