JB/047/083/002

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28 Jany 1803

Of the grounds of refusal in respect of
the admission of evidence those which make
the principal figure in English law are
reducible to two heads – interest & criminality.
Of these two in point of reason the only
immediate ground is that of Interest: that
of criminality rests upon the other and derives
all its force from it: but this will be
seen the more clearly as the particular notions
included under the general terms come to
be developed.

Note continued

In the proper sense of the term non-credibility, if it
existed, would be a ground more or less sufficient for incompetency: i:e: certainty
of not being believed would be a ground for exclusion: In this
sense an objection to the credibility of a witness would be the same thereby
thing as be an objection to his competency at the same time. The
impropriety of one of the terms and the almost indistinguishableness of their
import seems on this as on so many other occasions to have been
the circumstance that recommended the use of them to English lawyers.

A cloud of confusion was thus raised under it favour of which they contrived
to fritter away little by little a system of the absurdity of
which they came by degrees to be ashamed. On pretence principles by which
if consistently pursued pursued to the utmost all almost all evidence would have
been excluded, witnesses of this and that description were shut
each one after another as they presented themselves. A determination
was formed to put a stop, as often as plausible pretence could be
found, to put a stop to the application of the principle: in a word
not to exclude the witness, though by a steady and consistent application
f the principle he must have been excluded. To save appearances
the sinister interest or whatever else was the ground – the was to be allowed to
be an objection – but to what? – to not to his comptency, in the cases
where

Identifier: | JB/047/083/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 47.
Date_1	1803-12-23	Marginal Summary Numbering	5
Box	047	Main Headings	evidence
Folio number	083	Info in main headings field	evidence
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e3
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	14951
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