DIDEROT ON 'JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE' (I)
"Regina mundi forma" — Diderot

AM | @agumack

The notion of 'judicial independence' plays an important role in Histoire des deux Indes and, more broadly, in Diderot's political thought. It is a complex issue, and it is bound to take more than one post. In early 1766, the Parisian philosophes were debating a thorny issue raised by Beccaria: "...la faculté de juger, ma non dipendente da quella con immediata podestà. M. d'Alembert, M. Diderot, plusieurs de nos amis et moi, nous n'avons jamais pu entendre cet endroit" (*). In Nakaz 39, Diderot declares: "Je pense que ces deux puissances [législative et exécutrice] doivent être séparées de la magistrature".

It seems to me that Diderot's thinking on 'judicial independence' is organized around the following themes: (1) judges' honesty and competence; (2) judges' tenure; (3) budget issues, including judges' salaries; (4) due process of law or forme judiciaire. Surprisingly (or not), the notion of stare decisis —precedents as a formal source of law— does not seem to count at all. I'll come back to these points in the coming days and weeks. For now, I leave you with Diderot's sensational April 1771 letter to Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkoff, in which the problem of tenure is sketched in a way entirely worthy of Montesquieu, his maître à penser

Chaque siècle a son esprit qui le caractérise. L’esprit du nôtre semble être celui de la liberté ... Nous touchons à une crise qui aboutira à l’esclavage ou à la liberté ; si c’est à l’esclavage, ce sera un esclavage semblable à celui qui existe au Maroc ou à Constantinople. Si tous les parlements sont dissous, et la France inondée de petits tribunaux composés de magistrats sans conscience comme sans autorité, et révocables au premier signe de leur maître, adieu tout privilège des états divers formant un principe correctif qui empêche la monarchie de dégénérer en despotisme.

(*) Morellet to Beccaria, January 3, 1766, in Cesare Beccaria. Dei delitti e delle pene. A cura di Franco Venturi. Torino: Einaudi, 1994, p. 353.
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