On Saturday last, the French Senate adopted that provision of
the new Bill on the Magistracy of France which suspends for three months judicial irremoveability, by the small majority of 3,-133 Senators voting for it, and 130 against it. It is, no doubt, true that there are too many Judges in France, and that a reduction of their number by some 500 to 600 will be very beneficial in the end. But to leave to the Executive the power of choosing whom it will suspend is to destroy the prestige of irremoveability, and to set an example which it is far from unlikely that a jealous democracy will often urge the French Chambers to follow. It is not denied that the five or six hundred Judges to be selected for removal will be Judges of anti-Republican opinions, and that a solemn example of political interference with the Judiciary is to be set, at the instance of the Legislature. The Judges suspended will be pen- sioned off ; but that is but a small alleviation of the injustice inflicted, and no alleviation at all of the bad precedent set up. It is quite true that, under the Empire, Judges were dismissed with. out any compensation, and that the Reactionary Cabinet of 1877 dismissed very freely public prosecutors and justices of the peace; but the Republic should have shown itself stronger than the Empire, and than the Reactionary Cabinet of 1877. The next step downwards will be to have elective Judges,—and that is a step which the Chamber has already shown itself willing enough to take.
Previous page
