Bentham on Legal Powers

The expression "legal power" is not very familiar in our jurisprudence.Yet we need it or some equivalent expression to refer to a range of situations, familiar in the ordinary working of a modem legal system, where persons are enabled by the law either to do actions physically affecting other persons or things, or to bring about changes in the legal positions of others or of themselves, or of both themselves and others.Some of the cases that fall within this wide characterization of legal powers are in fact quite commonly referred to in tie terminology of "powers" by judges, lawyers, legal writers and others.Thus we speak of a policeman's powers of arrest, of the legislative powers of a Parliament, of a Minister's powers to make rules, regulations or orders, of a Corporation's powers to make by-laws, of a Judge's power to make an order or to sentence a convicted person or to vary a settlement, or of the Lord Chancellor's power to appoint County Court Judges.These are all cases where the powers mentioned are held by officials or public bodies.It is somewhat less common to speak of private citizens who are enabled by law to change the legal positions of others or of themselves or to do actions physically affecting things or persons as having "powers" to make such changes or to do such actions.Some of these latter cases are so described; we speak of a private individual as having a power of appointment over trust property or a power to appoint new trustees, or of a tenant for life's