JB/021/235 Transcribe Bentham Transcribed by Encoded by Tim Causer Corrected by Bentham Project Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham, University College London Library: JB/021/235 2010-12-21 Checked and corrected against ms
1823 Feb. 17 Judicatory Procedure Parties appear

Cases of well-attested sickness excepted no proxy for the party should ever be heard. The party complaining should appear in the Judicatory, state in person what it is he claims and if able on the ground of what text in the law he claims it: if the party be unable, it belongs to /let/ the Judge by interrogatives put to the party his endeavours to ascertain whether supposing the plaintiffs account true in fact, he has by the appointment of the law a claim to any to any and what service at the hands of the Judge, and at the charge of what person or persons in the character of defendents

Whether the defendent shall be bound to appear and answer at that same Judicatory or at another, it will be for the Judge to determine upon a balance drawn between the expence and vexation of attendance at the Judicatory of the Plaintiffs District /of which the Plaintiff is an inhabitant/ or at the judicatory of the Defendents district: and in case of a certain degree of remoteness whether the intercourse /contestation/ shall be carried on orally, or under the direction and authority of the judicatory or judicature in the way of epistolary correspondence

If both parties being within the dominion of the judicatory, the cause or suit can be transacted on the same day as it begins, so much the better: if not, it is by the mutual concurrence of the parties, and the room afforded by the time of the Judicatory, that further days of attendance should be determined.

Of the attendance of parties one more use is their being heard as witnesses: each of them a voluntary witness for his own use and behalf, a compulsory witness for the use and behalf of every adverse party

Nothing can be more absurd and mischievous than the notion that the parties are not fit to be heard as witnesses: where the facts in question have been within their experience respectively which in most instances is the case they are the very best of witnesses The sinister interest and the temptation of which they respectively give their narrative being so obvious and [...?], Judge and bystanders are all upon their guard, and it is less likely than any other to become deceptious.

For the attendance of one single party, the attendance of witnesses in any number may be saved, and with them a load of expence and vexation such as, by the exclusion it might put upon the least affluent party, have been productive of irremediable injustice.