THE EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3003, 9 February 1881, Page 4

THE EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES.

The following opinions of the late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn on the manner in which witnesses are often treated by bullying barristers may be read with advantage by some members of the legal profession : "I deeply deplore that members of the Bar so frequently put, unnecessarily, questions affecting the private l'fe of witnesses, which are only justifiable when they affect the credibility of a witness. I have watched closely the administration of justice in France, Q-ermany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and a little in Spain, as well as in the United States, in Canada, and in Ireland, and in no place have seen witnesses bo badgered, browbeaten, and in every way so brutally multreated as in England. The way in whioh we treat our witnesses is a national disgrace, and seriously obstructs instead of aiding the ends of justice. In England, the most honorable and conscientious men loathe the witness box. Men and women of all ranks shrink with horror from subjecting themselves to the wanton insult and bullying, misnamed cross-examination, in our English courts. W ntch the tremor that passes the frames of many persons as they enter the witness box. I remember to have seen so distinguished a man as the late >ir Benjamin lirodie shiver as he entered the witness-box. I dare say his „ppr-hension amounted to exquisite torture. Witnesses are just as necessary for the administration of justice as judges or jurymen, and are pntitled to be treated with the same consideration, and their affairs and private lives ought to be held as sacred from the gaze of the public as those of the judges and the jurymen. I venture to allow no questions to be put to a witness unless such as are clearly pertinent to the issuo before the Court, except where tho credibility of the witness ia deliberately challenged by counsel 5 and that the credibility of a witness should not be wantonly challenged on slight grounds."