Under the old Law a purchaser was bound by undocketed judgments of which he had notice, but it is expressly provided by the late acts that the judgment creditor shall not take advantage of the extended remedies unless the judgment be duly registered according to their provisions. The necessity for searching for judgments on the transfer of property is also greatly reduced, for the 2 & 3 Viet. c. 11, requires all judgments to be re-registered every five years from the date of the last registry, otherwise they are to be considered as void against pur chasers, mortgagors, and creditors ; and by the act 18 & 19 Viet. c. 15, s. 5, notice of any judgment not duly re-registered will not avail against purchasers, mortgagors, or creditors. The provisions for regis tration, it must however be remembered, refer to the remedies which the judgment creditor may have against purchasers for valuable con sideration with notice ; but as between the creditor and the debtor, or his representatives or volunteers, the judgment remains in full effect until twenty years from the time of entering up or last revival. The position in general of judgment creditors among themselves before the late acts depended on the time when they respectively sued out execu tion ; but in a suit for the general administration of assets the judg ment creditors took priority according to the time of entering up their judgments. Now as they are entitled to such remedies in equity as if tho debtor had by writing charged his land, they take priority iu respect of their judgments from the times of registration. It has been questioned whether a subsequent judgment creditor without notice having sued out his writ of °legit is not entitled to priority over an equitable mortgagee, but the point has been decided in favour of the latter, upon the principle, that although the judgment creditor by his writ of elegit obtained possession of the legal estate, and thereby in equity, tinder the ordinary roles, could claim a priority to a prior equitable hicumbrance of which he had no notice, yet that the legal estate which the creditor obtains under an elegit is only such a one as the debtor himself had power to grant, and therefore liable to all prior equities. (Whitworth v. Gaugain, 3 Hare, 461.) By these statutes judgments of the courts of the counties Palatine of Lancaster and Durham are to have the same effect as judgments of the superior courts of Westminster. But no judgment of those courts
is to affect lands in the hands of purchasers, mortgagors, or creditors, unless a memorandum of such judgment be left with the prothonotary or proper officer, who is to register the same in a book kept for the purpose.
Judgments or rules or orders of inferior courts of record, in which a barrister of not less than seven years' standing shall preside, may receive the same effect as those of a superior court by a judge's order to remove them into a superior court. But until execution be actually sued out. they will not affect lands in the hands of purchasers, mortgagors, or creditors, except so far as they would affect them as judgments of an inferior court.
In criminal proceedings, after trial the defendant can move in arrest of judgment at any time before judgment is pronounced, but this can only be done upon error appearing on the face of the record, and no motion of this sort can be made in the defendant's absence unless a verdict is found in which the jury reserve a point for the consideration of the court. After the judgment is recorded, a writ of error is necessary before it can either be reversed or altered. Formerly no judgment affecting the liberty of the individual could be pronounced in his absence, but this has been altered by the 11 Geo. IV. and 1 Wm. IV. e. 70, which enacts that upon trials for felonies or mis demeanours judgment may be pronounced whether the person affected be present or absent, except only in such cases of information as are filed by leave of the Court of Queen's Bench, or in cases of information filed by the attorney-general, where he prays that judgment maybe postponed. The judgment of the court extends to the life and liberty of the offender according to punishment decreed to the offence against which the judgment is delivered. In some cases it extends to the compen sation by forfeiture of the lands or goods, or both, of the offender ; others induce a disability of holding offices, or fix a lasting stigma on the offender ; and a large proportion are merely pecuniary by stated or discretionary fines.
On the subject of judgments see Chitty s' General Practiee ; ' Stephen, 'On the Principles of Pleading in Civil Actions ;' Sugden's Vendors and Purchasers ;' Prideaux,' On the Law of Judgments as they affect Real Property.'