" [6]
The passage and enforcement of this statute, and the assumption
of this oath by the king, were plain violations of the English
constitution, inasmuch as they abolished, so far as such an oath
could abolish, the legislative power of the king, and also "those
just laws and customs which the common people (through their
juries) had chosen," and substituted the will of parliament in
their stead.
Coke was a great advocate for the legislative power of
parliament, as a means of restraining the power of the king. As
he denied all power to juries to decide upon the obligation of
laws, and as he held that the legislative power was "so
transcendent and absolute as (that) it cannot be confined, either
for causes or persons, within any bounds," [7] he was perhaps
honest in holding that it was safer to trust this terrific power
in the hands of parliament, than in the hands of the king. His
error consisted in holding that either the king or parliament had
any such power, or that they had any power at all to pass laws
that should be binding upon a jury.
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