[97] Page 70.
[98] Page 12.
[99] Or, by judicio suo may be understood that the Chancellor is impowered to inflict which of the several censures mentioned in the Statute he shall think fit, on offenders. The words are ignavos, &c. suspensione graduum, carcere, aut alio leviore supplicio, JUDICIO SUO castigandos. And the same is the meaning of PRO ARBITRIO SUO in the Statute de Officio Procuratorum; on which the Inquirer affects to lay some stress (p. 32). “Eum, qui deliquerit, primò pecuniâ præfinitâ mulctabit; iterum delinquenti duplicabit mulctam; tertiò verò si deliquerit, gravius, pro ARBITRIO SUO, coercebit.” But take it in which sense you will, either of passing sentence by his single authority or determining the kind of punishment at his discretion, neither way can this expression be made to serve the cause in hand. No art of construction can pick, out of the words judicio suo, the sense of final determination.
[100] Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.
[101] The ignorance of the Inquirer, who asserts that the University has nothing to do with ecclesiastical censures, and that suspension from degrees, in particular, is a punishment merely academical (p. 26), is amazing. Had he been in the least qualified to treat the matter he has undertaken, he would have known that suspension is not merely an usage of the University Court, as such, but was practised by the Ecclesiastical Court of the Bishops or Archbishops, as long as they had jurisdiction in the University. To let in one ray or two of light, in mere compassion, on that utter darkness which environs him, and shuts out all law, canon as well as civil, I will just refer him to Arundel’s Constitutions in a provincial Council; where Members of the University offending in the premisses are declared suspended, ab omni actu scholastico, and deprived, ab omni privilegio scholastico. [Lyndwood, de Hæret. cap. Finaliter.] And the same appears in a Constitution of Archbishop Stratford. [Ib. De Vit. & Honest. Clericorum, cap. Exterior.]
[102] So Mr. Attorney General Yorke, in his Argument for the University in Dr. Bentley’s Case,—“The congregation are to be considered as the judges of the Court, and the Vice-chancellor as their official.” The Inquirer hath himself desired the reader to observe (p. 10) that the V. C. in the absence of the Chancellor, hath all the power which the University delegates to this great officer.
[103] That his Court was directed by this law, appears from a determination of Delegates, concerning second Appeals in the same cause, which I will take the liberty to transcribe.
De Appellationibus à Delegatis.
In Dei nomine, Amen. Nos D. Buckmaister, Inceptor Dakyns, M’ri Myddylton, Longforth, et Pomell, authoritate nobis ab Universitate commissâ, decernimus ac pro firmâ sententiâ determinamus, quòd liceat unicuique in suâ causâ appellare à judicibus delegatis per Universitatem ad eandem Universitatem, modò id fiat juxta juris exigentiam, hoc est, si antea ab eodem secundâ vice in eâdem causâ appellatum non fuerit. Quod si anteà bis appellaverit, neutiqùam tertiò appellare licebit, quum id prorsus sit vetitum tam per jus civile quàm canonicum: Cæterum unicuique tam actori quàm reo maneat sua libertas appellandi in suâ causâ à judicibus delegatis per Universitatem modo supradicto et à jure præscripto. [Lib. Proc. Jun. fol. 132.]
[104] See old Statutes De Judiciis et Foro scholarium; De pœnis Appellantium; De tempore prosequendi Appellationes.