of her complaint. She would be required to prove that the trial court was bribed; that it committed fraud. She would be required to prove that the attorney referred to in the complaint committed fraud. We believe that law and justice require that she should have that opportunity.
Assuming the allegations of the complaint to be true, it would appear that the trial court closed the doors of justice to her, and this, in defiance of § 22 of our Constitution, which requires that all courts shall be open; that every man, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, or reputation, shall have remedy by due process of law. There was no due process of law in the trial court, if, as charged by the complaint, that trial court was bribed for $1,500 to decide the case in defendant’s favor. That court was not open, but closed.
It seems so far, that this court, by inadvertence and failure to fully comprehend and consider the seriousness of the charges of the complaint, and by, in effect, holding that a void judgment is made valid by the lapse of time, has, in effect, closed the doors of justice to this court to plaintiff. They have, in effect, said to her, “For the injuries you have sustained, for the loss of your share of the community property, for the humiliation and suffering you have endured, notwithstanding § 22 of the Constitution, this court and no courts are open to you, but all are closed. You have no remedy, notwithstanding that your complaint charges that the trial court was bribed to decide the divorce proceeding for defendant, and notwithstanding that the demurrer interposed to that complaint admits all the allegations and charges of the complaint well pleaded.”
How can this plaintiff go hence, except with the belief that she has been granted injustice and no protection for her sacred rights of person and property, and this from those very tribunals she, no doubt, in common with all true citizens, has been taught all her life, to revere?
Of course, it is astounding that a charge of bribery should be made against one holding a high and responsible judicial position. Other judicial officers who are called upon, in the discharge of their duties, to consider such a charge when presented to them in due course of law, are apt to rebel at the thought that such a charge could be thought of. However, judicial officers are only men, mere human beings, who, after they enter on the discharge of their high duties, retain the same frail human nature they possessed before they were elevated to that high and responsible position.
Judicial officers, as a class, perhaps have no higher degree of integrity than the average of any other class of public officers, whose duties
