Report No. 28
8. Oaths as security for ensuring veracity of evidence.-The municipal laws of various countries have devised several securities for ensuring veracity and completeness of evidence given in courts of justice. These securities vary in different countries and with the system of law to which they are attached. Some of these prevalent in the system of Anglo-Saxon law and other systems based upon Anglo-Saxon law, are, the publicity of judicial proceedings, the compulsory presence of witnesses in open court, the right of cross-examination of witnesses, and the punishment for perjury1. To these securities may be added another very remarkable one which consists in requiring evidence in courts of justice to be given on oath- according to the maxim2-In judicio non creditur nisi juratis3 (In judicial proceedings, testimony is not believed unless given upon oath). As Best has said4. "However abused or perverted by ignorance and superstition, an oath has in every age been found to supply the strongest hold on the conscience of men either as a pledge of future conduct or as a guarantee for the veracity of narration.".
1. Best on Evidence, 1922, pp. 40-41, paras. 54-55.
2. Best on Evidence, 1922, p. 42, para. 56.
3. As to this maxim, see Best on Evidence, 1922, paras. 1380 and 1378.
4. Best on Evidence, 1922, p. 42, para. 56.
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