BRIBERY, in English law, has a threefold signification : denoting, first, the offence of a judge, magistrate, or gmy person concerned judicially in the adim nistration of justice, receiving a reward or consideration from parties interested, for the purpose of procuring a partial and favourable decision ; secondly, the receipt or payment of money to a public ministerial officer as an inducement to him to act contrary to his duty ; and thirdly, the giving or receiving of money to procure votes at parliamentary elec tions, or elections to public offices of trust.
I. In England judicial bribery bas from early times been considered a very heinous offence. By an ancient statute, 2 Heu. IV. " All judges, officers, and ministers of the king convicted of bribery shall forfeit treble the bribe, he punished at the king's will, and be discharged from the king's service for ever." The person offering the bride is guilty of a misde meanour. Sir Edward Coke says that " if the party offereth a bribe to the judge, meaning to corrupt him in the cause depending before him, and the judge taketh it not, yet this is an offence punishable by law in the party that Both offer it." (3 last. 147.) In the 24 Edw. III. (1351) Sir William Thorpe, then chief justice of England, was found guilty, upon his own confession, of having received bribes from several great men to stay a writ which ought in due course of law to have issued against them. For this offence he was condemned to be hanged, and all his lands and goods for feited to the crown. Blackstone says (Comment. vol. iv. p. 140) that he was actually executed ; but this is a mistake, as the record of the proceeding shows that he was almost immediately pardoned and restored to all his lands (3 Inst. 146). It appears also from the Year Book (28 Ass. pl. 2) that he was a few years after wards reinstated in his office of chief jus tice. The case, therefore, does not speak so strongly in favour of the purity oft he administration of justice in early times as many writers, following Blackstone, have supposed. In truth, the corruption of the judges for centuries after Sir Wm. Thorpe's case occurred was notorious and unquestionable. It is noticed by Edward VI. in a discourse of his published by Burnet, as a complaint then commonly made against the lawyers of his time. (Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation. vol. App. p. 72.) Its prevalence at a still later period, in the reign of James I., may be inferred from the caution contained in Lord Chancellor Bacon's address to Ser jeant Hutton upon his becoming a judge, "that his hands and the hands of those about him should be clean and uncorrupt from gifts and from serving of turns, be they great or small ones.' (Bacon's
Works, vol. ii. p. 632, edit. 1765.) In Lord Bacon's own confession of the charges of bribery made against him in the House of Lords, he alludes, by way of palliation, to the offence of judicial cor ruption as being vitium temporis. (How ell's State Trials, vol. ii. p. 1104.) Since the Revolution, in 1688, judicial bribery has been altogether unknown in Eng land, and no case is reported in any law book since that date in which this offence has been imputed to a judge in courts of superior or inferior jurisdiction.
II. Bribery in a public ministerial offi cer is a misdemeanour at common law in the person who takes and also in him who offers the bribe. A olerk to the agent for French prisoners of war at Porchester Castle, who had taken money for procuring the exchange of certain prisoners out of their turn, was indicted for bribery and severely punished by the Court of King's Bench. (1 East's Reports, 183.) A person offered the first lord of the treasury a sum of money for a public appointment in the colonies, and the Court of King's Bench, in Lord Mans field's time, granted a criminal inform ation against him. (4 Burrower's Rep. 2500.) Bribery with reference to particular classes of public officers has became pu nishable by several acts of parliament. Thus by the stmt. 6 Geo. IV. c. 106, § 29, if any person shall give, or offer, or promise any bribe to any officer or other person employed in the customs, to in duce him in any way to neglect his duty (whether the offer be accepted or not), he incurs a penalty of 500/. So also by 6 Geo. IV. c. 108, § 35, if any officer of the customs, or any officer of the army, navy, marines, or other person employee by or under the direction of the commis sioners of the customs, shall make any collusive seizure, or deliver up, sr agree to deliver up, or not to seize any vessel, or goods liable to forfeiture, or shall take any bribe for the neglect or non-perform ance of his duty, every such offender incurs a penalty of 5001., and is rendered incapable of serving his Majesty in any office whatever, either civil or military ; and the person also giving or offering the bribe, or making such collusive agree ment with the officer, incurs the like penalty. By the 6 Geo. IV. c. 80, § 145, similar penalties are inflicted upon officers of the excise who take bribes, as well as upon those who give or offer the bribe.