CELLOR; CHANCERY.] By various acts of parliament retiring pensions of a determinate amount may be granted to the fifteen judges of the three superior courts of law, and to the judges in Equity. The lowest retiring pension is 35001., and this amount may be given to all puisne judges of the three courts. The highest retiring pension is 50001., which may be granted by the crown to the lord chancellor upon his resignation. But to be entitled to these pensions all the judges of the superior courts of law, and the judges in Equity, except the lord chancellor, must have held the office for fifteen years, unless bad health has pre vented them from holding office so long.
Judges of Courts of Record [Comers] are not liable to prosecution for anything done by them as judges, but they may be prosecuted in parliament. Nor are they liable to an action for any error in judg ment, or for wrongful imprisonment, at least when they are acting within their jurisdiction. Judges are punishable for bribery by loss of office, fine, and impri sonment.
The powers and duties of judges would form the subject of an elaborate treatise. It may be sufficient to observe that in England the judges of the superior courts are so well protected in the discharge of their duty and so sure in their office, as to make them entirely independent of all political and private influence, and they are paid well enough to secure them against all temptation of lucre. Accord
ingly an instance of misconduct in any judge of the superior courts of law, or any judge who holds a high office, is now seldom or never heard of. The only ques tion that can be raised is, whether the most competent persons are always ap pointed, and whether persons are not sometimes appointed who, though not ab solutely incompetent, are much less com petent than others, and sometimes hardly competent. This danger is somewhat limited by public opinion, and parties..
larly by the opinion of the members of the bar, so that the risk of a totally in competent person being appointed is not great. But as the appointment of the judges in the superior courts of law, and the judges in Equity, is really made by those who for the time act as the minis ters of the crown, the appointments of judges are, like other appointments made by the ministers, nearly always conferred on those who belong to the political party which for the time is in power. This evil, so far as it is an evil, is inseparable from the practical working of the constitution, and is probably a much less evil than any other mode of appointment that could be suggested.