Saturday, March 7, 2009

March 7: Bacon Warns Judges (Vol. 3, 130-134)

Sir Francis Bacon was made Keeper of the Great Seal of England on this day in 1616. That makes today's essay, "On Judicature," particularly apt.

Bacon pointed out that judges must interpret law, not make it, and that a judge's principal duty is to "suppress force and fraud." This essay is the source for how the ethics of law came to be and where, I presume, the legal doctrine of original intent came from.

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