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Justices of the Peace.
1. In preventing the Breach of the Peace,
(wisely foreseeing and repressing
the beginnings thereof) by taking Surety for the keeping of it,
or for the good Behaviour of the Offenders, as the case shall require. |
Chap. 3. |
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2. In pacifying such as are in breaking of
the Peace: See
postea, titulo
Affray. |
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3. In punishing (according to Law) such
as have broken the Peace. |
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But of the three, the first, the preventing Justice,
is most worthy to be
commended to the care of the Justices of Peace. |
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§. 4.
Stat. 27 H.
9.c.24. |
" The constituting and making Justices of
Peace is inherent in, and
" inseparable from the Crown of this Kingdom, and because this amongst
" others had been severed therefrom, to the great diminution and detriment
" of that Royal State, and the hindrance and delay of Justice, as
" speaks the Statute of 27 H. 8. It was thereby
Enacted, That no person
" should have authority to make any Justices of Peace, but only the
King,
" his Heirs and Successors, by their Letters Patents, nor was nor is
his
" power to be delegated, for the King cannot grant a man power to make
" Justices of the Peace, as is the Book of 20 H. 7.7 a. |
Who may
make them. |
§. 5.
Three forts. |
Justices of Peace (at this day) are of three forts,
and are appointed or
created by three means. |
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1. First, by Act of Parliament; as the Bishop
of Ely and his Successors,
and their temporal Stewards of the Isle of Ely (for the time being)
shall
be Justices of Peace within the said Isle, and shall use and have within
the
said Isle all such power as doth belong to any Justice of Peace within
any
County. |
27 H. 8. 124
P. Just. 2. |
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And so of the Archbishop of York, and the
Bishop of Durham, and their
Successors, and their temporal Chancellors, &c. ibidem. |
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Lamb. 26.
Br. Crom.
miss. 5. |
2. Secondly, By Grant made by the King by
his Letters Patents under
the Great Seal, (and by his Bill assigned;) as Mayors, and the chief Officers
in divers Corporate Towns: and such the King cannot discharge again
at his pleasure, but they shall continue and enjoy their Jurisdiction according
as their Letters Patents do enable them; and therefore if the King
granteth to a Mayor, or other Head officer of a City or Corporate Town,
and to their Successors, to be Justices of Peace in their City or Town
and
after maketh out Commission of the Peace to others there, yet the Authority
and Jurisdiction of the Mayor, &c. remaineth good, for that it was
granted to them and their Successors, and is not revocable at the King's
pleasure, as the Commission of the Peace is. |
By grant. |
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" Which Grants and Charters may notwithstanding
for some great and
" general defect of, or miscarriage in the execution of the powers and
authorities
" herein granted, be repealed and the liberties seized, so also may
" the King's Majesty upon reasonable cause moving him ne decesset populo
" in Justitia exhibenda, grant concurrent Commissions of the
Peace within
" such Incorporations. |
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And such Justices of Peace by Grant or Patent have
thereby the same
power as the Conservators of the Peace had by the Common Law; and,
it seemeth, such power also is given to the Justices of Peace (or to any
one Justice of Peace) by express words in any Statute; But none of them
have thereby the whole power which is ordinarily given tot he Commissioners
of the Peace by Act of Parliament, se the Archbishop of York,
and the Bishops of Durham and Ely, and their temporal Chancellors
and
Stewards. |
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Also concerning such Justices of Peace by Grant
or Patent, if the
Grant be made to such as be not learned in the Law, yet if the Grant be, |
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