Question Second. On the Plaintiff and Accuser

729. Preliminary notions. a. A plaintiff is he who in a civil cause calls another into judgment, for example, in order to obtain payment of a debt. At the petition of the plaintiff judgment is instituted, in which he himself is bound to prove the cause.

b. An accuser is he who in criminal causes brings a crime before the judge. Once accusation has been made, one likewise proceeds to judgment, and the accuser also takes on himself the obligation of proving the crime brought forward.

c. A denouncer is he who brings an offense before a superior or judge, yet does not take on himself the obligation of proving it, but commits to the office and prudence of the judge whether he himself wishes to pursue the cause, in which case the denouncer will be a witness.

In a well-ordered state there must be one constituted who protects common rights and goods and therefore prosecutes crimes by bringing them into judgment. In diverse times this was entrusted to diverse persons, either to each private citizen, or to a public official, or to the official and citizens. From present law a judicial accusation made by private persons is not admitted, but must be made by a public person constituted for this purpose, who is customarily called the fiscal or royal prosecutor (Staatsanwalt): for public authority itself takes on itself the office of accusing delinquents. Therefore today nothing is left to private persons except the denunciation of crimes; this indeed can always be done where the committed crime is sufficiently established, and sometimes also must be done, as will soon be said.

730. Obligation of accusing and denouncing. 1. From commutative justice those are bound to accuse who have been constituted for this by office. Of this kind are public officials, guards of forests, fields, and vineyards, prefects of taxes, etc.; and indeed all these must accuse even with their own grave inconvenience, because they are held to this not only from charity but from justice.

a. The royal prosecutor himself is bound without respect of persons to accuse or punish by fine those who have been found in crime or denounced by private men for a crime, provided the criminal or penal law is just. Nevertheless he is not prohibited from acting more mildly with those who have offended from mere levity.

b. Those who fail in their office in a grave matter are bound to repair the damages which come to the community or to owners from the accusation omitted; indeed they must also restore wages according to the measure of the neglected office.

c. Guards of fields, etc., are permitted to act more mildly in this matter if the damages are of lesser moment and not repeated more often, if the consent of the owner in the omitted accusation can prudently be presumed, if the delinquent is very poor and not accustomed to thefts. Guards are not bound to make accusation if delinquents of their own accord offer themselves for secretly compensating the damage.

2. From charity or from law, private men are bound to denounce in these cases:

a. If there is question of a crime which turns to common damage; in this case denunciation must be made even with grave inconvenience.

b. If there is question of grave damage to be averted from, or repaired to, an innocent third person, yet not with grave inconvenience.

c. If denunciation is prescribed by positive law.

Both civil law and ecclesiastical law sometimes prescribe that denunciation be made; the former scarcely ever obliges a private man in conscience, the latter more frequently. Thus the following are to be denounced: a. soliciting priests; b. hidden leaders of a sect prohibited by the Church under censure; c. heretics publicly dogmatizing.

3. In order that a delinquent can licitly be denounced, it is required that his crime be certain, or at least that grave indications render someone suspected of the crime; but in this case the crime is not to be denounced as certain, for otherwise the right to reputation would be injured. It is sometimes lawful to denounce even a hidden crime: for those delinquents do not have a right to reputation whose hidden crime turns to common damage or to the damage of an innocent third person.