A man's books are allowed to be evidence, or, which is in substance the same, his servant's books, because the nature of the case requires it,--as in the case of a brewer's servants.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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There is no rule that seems more binding than that a man shall not be admitted an evidence in his own case, and yet the Statute of Hue and Cry is an exception.
There is no general rule without exception that we know of but this,--that the best evidence shall be admitted which the nature of the case will afford.
One witness (and for that reason) is allowed sufficient to convict, in cases of felony, which in other laws is not permitted.
The origin of this latitude may perhaps be sought in this circumstance, which we know to have relaxed the rigor of the Roman law: courts in England do not judge upon evidence, secundum allegata et probata, as in other countries and under…
The necessity of detecting and punishing such crimes superseded, in the soundest authors, this theoretic aim at perfection, and obliged technical science to submit to practical expedience.
In some cases the number of the witnesses, in others their dignity and authority, is to be weighed; in others, concurring public fame tends to confirm the credit of the evidence in question.
Indeed, after all their efforts to fix these things by positive and inflexible maxims, the best Roman lawyers, in their best ages, were obliged to confess that every case of evidence rather formed its own rule than that any rule could be…
But as human affairs and human actions are not of a metaphysical nature, but the subject is concrete, complex, and moral, they cannot be subjected (without exceptions which reduce it almost to nothing) to any certain rule.
They will be forever, what for the greater part they have hitherto been, inclined to compromise with the corruption of the magistrates, as a screen against that violence from which the laws afford them no redress.
Their spirits are broken by the arbitrary power usurped over them, and claimed by the delinquent as his law.
The people themselves, on whose behalf the Commons of Great Britain take up this remedial and protecting prosecution, are naturally timid.
The abuses stated in our impeachment are not those of mere individual, natural faculties, but the abuses of civil and political authority.
Those unhappy persons are so far from being supported by men of rank and influence, that the whole weight and force of the community is directed against them.
Such confined and inapplicable rules would be convenient, indeed, to oppression, to extortion, bribery, and corruption, but ruinous to the people, whose protection is the true object of all tribunals and of all their rules.
We are sensible that all men, and without any evil intentions, will naturally wish to extend their own jurisdiction, and to weaken all the power by which they may be limited and controlled.
There are no privileges or exemptions from the infirmities of our common nature.
They tend wholly to take away from the Commons the benefit of making good their case before the proper judges, and submit this high inquest to the inferior courts.
These essential innovations tend, as your Committee conceives, to make an entire alteration in the constitution and in the purposes of the High Court of Parliament, and even to reverse the ancient relations between the Lords and the Judges.
He argues them publicly, though in the Chamber of Parliament,--and in such a manner, that every professor, practitioner, or student of the law, as well as the parties to the suit, may learn the opinions of all the Judges of all the courts…
It was fortunate for the Constitution of this kingdom, that, in the judicial proceedings in the case of ship-money, the Judges did not then venture to depart from the ancient course.
To give judgment privately is to put an end to reports; and to put an end to reports is to put an end to the law of England.
These rights, contended for by the Commons in their impeachments, and admitted by the Peers, were asserted in the proceedings preparatory to the trial of Lord Stafford, in which that long chain of uniform precedents with regard to the…
They knew that the mere circumstance of privacy in a judicature, where any publicity is in use, tends to beget suspicion and jealousy.
The Judges in this resolution overruled the authority of the precedent, which militated against the whole spirit of their place and profession.
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