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30 Baylor L. Rev. 5 (1978)
Texas Civil Procedure Rule Making

handle is hein.journals/baylr30 and id is 33 raw text is: BAYLOR LAW REVIEW VOLUME 30 WINTER, 1978 NUMBER 1 TEXAS CIVIL PROCEDURE RULE MAKING JACK POPE* AND STEVE MCCONNICO** The great rights of mankind are meaningless if there is no fair and efficient procedure through which they may be asserted and protected. Bushell and his fellow jurors learned that grim lesson in the seventeenth century when they were imprisoned for asserting their verdict against the threats of the judge.1 Without procedural rules, substantive rights do not become realities when justice, is measured out case by case. It is for this reason that the rules of procedure for the trials of cases and the machinery for changing and improving those rules should be more fully understood. Who makes the rules of civil procedure in Texas, and who ought to make them? What is the process for achieving a change in one of the rules? To understand the Texas rule making process, it is first helpful to review how other jurisdictions have re- solved the issue of who makes the rules of procedure. I. THE RULE MAKING PROCESS IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS A. England In England the courts traditionally had the power to prescribe rules of procedure.2 By the nineteenth century English procedure had be- come notoriously complex. In remedying this problem Parliament, rather than the courts, took the initiative. Parliament's procedural re- forms culminated in the Judicature Acts of 1873 to 1875. These acts provided that the courts should control the details of British procedure and that Parliament should control British procedure's total design. Today Britain continues to balance the rule making duty between the courts and Parliament, but the primary responsibility for drafting the *Justice, Texas Supreme Court. B.A., Abilene Christian College; LL.B., The University of Texas at Austin. **Attorney at Law, Houston, Texas. B.A., The University of Texas at Austin; J.D., Baylor University. 11 W. HOLDSWORTH, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW, 344-47 (7th ed. 1956). 2See, R. WALKER & M. WALKER, THE ENGLISH LEGAL SYSTEM 17-26 (2d ed. 1970).