Case 2. A Solitary Witness

Lucia, Caia’s maidservant, knew that Caia had committed adultery. When, however, she was summoned to give testimony on a future day concerning the adultery committed, in an action for divorce brought against Caia by her husband, she doubted whether she could and ought to reveal her mistress’s crime, since she alone besides the parties themselves knew it. Hence she went to a confessor, who, insofar as by divine, civil, and ecclesiastical law two witnesses are required to prove a crime and a single witness is not lawfully questioned by a judge about a crime which that witness alone knows, replied that Lucia ought not reveal the crime. When Titius, another priest, heard this, he judged that the confessor had sinned against justice, since by his reply he had prevented the husband from obtaining a good, namely a divorce, to which he had a right. Hence it is asked:

1. What are the obligations of witnesses, and whence do they arise?

2. To what extent do the prescriptions of ecclesiastical law and English law differ concerning the number of witnesses required to prove a crime, and is the English law just?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What are the duties of witnesses, and whence do they arise?

The question concerns witnesses in Courts of Justice, and in general any one may be under an obligation to give evidence about what he knows when this is necessary to prevent great harm to others or to the State. One who is summoned by lawful authority is also bound to give evidence by the obedience which he owes to that authority. As he has sworn to tell the truth, he will be bound also by his oath to tell the truth in answer to the questions that are put to him lawfully.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 504.

2. How does English law differ from canon law concerning the number of witnesses necessary to prove a crime, and is English law on the point just?

In canon law, as in the Mosaic and Roman law, two witnesses were necessary and sufficient to prove a crime. Except in the case of treason and one or two other crimes, one witness is held sufficient to prove a fact in English and many modern systems of law. This provision of modern law can not be called unjust, for practically always the evidence of the one witness is corroborated by other circumstantial evidence of the crime.²

2 Stephen’s Commentaries, vol. iv, p. 357; Génicot, vol. ii, n. 17.

3. The case. If the trial were about to take place in an ecclesiastical Court, in which Caia’s husband wished to obtain a divorce a toro et mensa, Lucy would not be bound to tell what she knows, unless there were already semiplena probatio of Caia’s guilt. To avoid needless complications in the case we will waive the question about the State’s competence in marriage cases. In England it is at least competent in cases of judicial separation. If, then, Lucy were summoned in such a case she would practically be bound to tell what she knows. Nor is this substantially at variance with the provisions of canon law,' for ordinarily when a witness is summoned, there is semiplena probatio, or infamy, or evident signs of guilt, and in those circumstances a single witness was obliged to give evidence even according to canon law. From what has been said it will be clear how far the confessors were right or wrong.