Any of these habits or actions occurring after appointment was to subject him to impeachment. Moreover, any judge who used his position to favor any individual or corporation, or who deviated from the path of even and exact justice for all, or who heckled a litigant, witness or attorney, or who treated them in an unnecessarily harsh or insulting manner, was to be, upon complaint duly attested to by reliable witnesses, tried for impeachment.
The Administrator was positive in his determination to have the judiciary a most efficient bureau of the people, and to have it sufficiently well paid to obtain the best talent. He wanted it held in the highest esteem, and to have an appointment thereon considered one of the greatest honors of the Republic. To do this he knew it was necessary for its members to be able, honest, temperate and considerate.
Chapter XXX
A New Code of Laws
Dru selected another board of five lawyers, and to them he gave the task of reforming legal procedure and of pruning down the existing laws, both State and National, cutting out the obsolete and useless ones and rewriting those recommended to be retained, in plain and direct language free from useless legal verbiage and understandable to the ordinary lay citizen.
He then created another board, of even greater ability, to read, digest and criticise the work of the other two boards and report their findings directly to him, giving a brief summary of their reasons and recommendations. To assist in this work he engaged in an advisory capacity three eminent lawyers from England, Germany and France respectively.
The three boards were urged to proceed with as much despatch as possible, for Dru knew that it would take at least several years to do it properly, and afterwards he would want to place the new code of laws in working order under the reformed judiciary before he would be content to retire. The other changes he had in mind he thought could be accomplished much more quickly.
Among other things, Dru directed that the States should have a simplification of land titles, so that transfers of real estate could be made as easy as the transfer of stocks, and with as little expense, no attorneys’ fees for examination of titles, and no recording fees being necessary. The title could not be contested after being once registered in a name, therefore no litigation over real property could be possible. It was estimated by Dru’s statisticians that in some States this would save the people annually a sum equal to the cost of running their governments.
A uniform divorce law was also to be drawn and put into operation, so that the scandals arising from the old conditions might no longer be possible.