The Common Law Procedure Act 1854 17 Author:John Thompson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: solemn affirmation instead thereof, such affirmation l, ein(? supposed, from their peculiar views, to rest on the religious sanction equally with an oath. Bu... more »t as, in eithr case, the religious sanction is considered indispensable to the admissibility of the evidence, the witness, on presenting himself to he examined, is liable so be asked whether he believes in a state of reward and punishment, and in the event of his answering in the negative, is excluded from giving evidence. Examination on Oath. The expediency of examination upon oath has in recent times been much called in question. It has been urged that where the moral and legal sanctions to speak truth are insufficient, the religious sanction, acting with a more remote motive, will have little or no effect; while the reliance placed on the efficacy of an oath tends to lull the tribunal which has to deal with the evidence into a false security. To this, however, it may be answered that this reliance on the oath results from the general experience of mankind of the effect of the religious sanction in this respect on the minds of men. It can, we think, hardly be doubted that there is a large class of persons who, though less alive than they ought to be to a sense of moral duty, or to the iear of legal penalties, may yet be deterred from falsehood when to these is added the dread ot Divine vengeance. Moreover, we think it cannot be doubted that the effect of a transition from the use of judicial oaths to simple declarations would, at least at the outset, by removing one of the barriers to falsehood, encourage false testimony, and tend materially to lessen the confidence of the public in the administration of justice. But while, for these reasons, we should be averse to the abolition of judicial oaths, in cases where...« less