THE EXECUTIVE AND THE JUDICIARY. 195 



As the Criminal Court had yet to be reformed he thought it 

 worth while to press his former suggestions, and to point out 

 inconveniences that might yet be removed. Of these the chief 

 was the establishment of two courts of concurrent jurisdiction. 1 

 The division of duties between the Chief Judge and Judge- 

 Advocate altogether was confusing, for the former had civil, 

 ecclesiastical and equity, the latter criminal, admiralty and civil 

 jurisdiction. A minor difficulty arose from the fact that the 

 two civil courts would ihave to sit at the same time, thus re- 

 quiring two court-rooms and the attendance of four "of the 

 most respectable inhabitants of the Colony ". 2 He was strongly 

 in favour of substituting an assistant judge for these members 

 of the court, who found attendance a burden and were of little 

 assistance to the judge. 3 They were, indeed, either nonentities 

 or obstructionists. Their lack of legal knowledge placed them 

 at a fatal disadvantage when they disagreed with the judge, 

 with the result that they gave an easy assent to his decisions, 

 or if they persisted in opposition found themselves reduced to 

 mere obstinate reiteration.* 



Bent repeated his recommendations for trial by jury in 

 criminal cases, and thought that grand juries also might be in- 

 troduced. As, however, there were not more than forty per- 

 sons for this duty, he suggested as a more convenient method 

 the practice followed in Scotland of trying cases on informa- 

 tion filed ex-officio by law officers of the Crown. 



The provision made for Van Diemen's Land he considered 

 utterly inadequate. 



There was one very disquieting feature in this letter. In 

 1811 the Judge- Advocate had pointed out that under the com- 

 mission he held difficulties might arise between the executive 

 and judiciary. In 1814 he made it equally clear that those 

 difficulties had arisen. At the beginning of the year Macquarie 

 and the Judge- Advocate had ceased to be on terms of personal 



1 He suggested that a better principle of division might be founded on the 

 nature of the relief sought. 



2 Bent to Bathurst, i4th October, 1814. R.O., MS. 



3 See also letter of igth October, 1811. H.R., VII. 



4 See, e.g., J. H. Bent's description of Riley and Broughton. Letter to Lord 

 Bathurst, ist July, 1815. R.O., MS. 



