CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 186, 11 July 1874, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Owe columns are open for free discussion; hut we do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our Correspondents] TO THB EDITOR. Sib, —Please insert the following. It may convey a useful hint to some engaged in law business amongst us.—Yours, Ac., Lex. Thb Lord Chief Justice of Queen's Bench on thb Treatment op Witnesses. —“ 1 deeply deplore that members of the bar so frequently put, unnecessarily, questions affecting the private life of witnesses, which are only justifiable when they goto the credibility of a witness. I have watched closely the administration of justice in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and a little in Spain, as well as in the United States, in Canada, and in Ireland, and in no place have I seen witnesses so badgered, browbeaten, and in every way so brutally maltreated as in England. The way in which 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.iwuks shrink with terror from subjecting themselves to the wanton insult and bullying, misnamed cross-examination, in our English Courts. Watch 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 Sir Benjamin Brodie shiver as he entered the witness-box. I dare say his apprehension amounted to exquisite torture. Witnesses are just as necessary for the administration of justice as judges or jurymen, and are entitled to be treated with the same consideration, and their affairs anil private lives ought to be held as sacred from the gaze of the public as those of the judges or the jurymen. I venture to think that it is the duty of a Judge to allow no questions to be put to a witness unless such as are clearly pertinent to the issue before the Court, except where the credibility of the witness is deliberately challenged by the counsel, and that the credibility of a witness should not be wantonly challenged on slight grounds."