is an impeachment of his wisdom and
goodness in the choice of his judges; and excites in the minds of the
people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial determinations, and
indisposes their minds to obey them. To be impartial, and _to be
universally thought_ so, are both absolutely necessary for the giving
justice that free, open and uninterrupted current which it has for many
ages found all over this kingdom, and which so eminently distinguishes
and exalts it above all nations upon the earth." Again, "the
constitution has provided very apt and proper remedies for correcting
and rectifying the involuntary mistakes of judges, and for punishing and
removing them for any perversion of justice. But if their authority is
to be trampled on by pamphleteers and news-writers, and the people are
to be told that the power given to the judges for their protection is
prostituted to their destruction, the court may retain its power some
little time, but I am sure it will eventually lose all its authority."

The object of the discipline enforced by the court by proceedings for
contempt of court is not now, if it ever was, to vindicate the personal
dignity of the judges or to protect them from insult as individuals, but
to vindicate the dignity and authority of the court itself and to
prevent acts tending to obstruct the due course of justice. The question
whether a personal invective against judges should be dealt with _brevi
manu_ by the court attacked, or by proceedings at the instance of the
attorney-general by information or indictment for a libel on the
administration of justice or on the judge attacked, or should be dealt
with by a civil action for damages, depends on the nature and occasion
of the attack on the judge.

There has at times been a disposition by judges in colonial courts to
use the process of the court to punish criticisms on their acts by
counsel or parties or even outsiders, which the privy council has been
prone to discourage. For instance in a Nova Scotia case a barrister was
suspended from practice for writing to the chief justice of the province
a letter relating to a case in which the barrister was suitor. The privy
council while considering the letter technically a contempt, held the
punishment inappropriate. In _Macleod_ v. _St Aubyn_ (1899, A.C. 549) it
was said that proceedings for scandalizing the court itself were
obsolete in England. But in 1900 the king's bench division, following
the Almon ca