The Hindu Business Line : Thou shalt not bear false witness

WE ARE mute witnesses to witnesses turning hostile, and truth getting baked in the process. We may never come to terms with what witnesses say at different points of time, but let that not stop us from staring the word in its face. Witness is "a person who sees an event take place," defines Concise Oxford English Dictionary. He gives sworn testimony to a court of law or the policemen. There is a box or stand from where the witness gives evidence in a court, and the verdict.

"A witness is someone who has first-hand knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through their senses (for example, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) and can help certify important considerations to the crime or event," explains Wikipedia. "A witness who has seen the event first-hand is known as an eye-witness." Since witness's account is often presumed to be better than circumstantial evidence, what a witness says can swing the verdict one way or the other. The importance of witness is evident from the morals that the New Testament teaches: "Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness."

The word has its origin in "Old English witnes `attestation of fact, event, and so on, from personal knowledge,' also `one who so testifies,'" explains Online Etymology Dictionary. Originally, this meant `knowledge, wit.' A sonnet of the Bard packs both wit and witness in a line, "To witness duty, not to show my wit: duty so great, which wit so poor as mine may make seem bare." Though seeming farfetched the Greek word martyr has a literal meaning `witness', "probably related to mermera `care, trouble,' from mermairein `be anxious or thoughtful,' Sanskrit smruti `remember,' Latin memor `mindful.'"

To witness is to countersign a document, affirming the authenticity of a document or a signature on a document by signing it, explains Encarta. "A certain number of witnesses are legally required to be present at weddings and certain other official events, and may have to sign a register as evidence of the event having taken place," informs http://en.wikipedia.org. In King Henry V, you hear him saying, "Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all, that here I kiss her as my sovereign queen."

Normally, witnesses do not have to read the document; they have to see it being signed. Witness may not be party to the transaction in the document, as for example, in the case of wills, where witness is one who is not a beneficiary. Witness, therefore, attests, and the word attest has origin in Latin testari `bear witness.'

Expert witness is one who has knowledge not normally possessed by the average person concerning the topic that he is to testify about, according to www.hyperdictionary.com. The opposite is a lay witness. Experts are in the news. For instance, in the Martha Stewart case there are reports that a government expert witness on ink analysis lied on the stand. Elsewhere, a Pennington County judge has decided to allow a former camp counsellor, facing multiple rape charges, to have his expert witness analyse the victim's therapy records to prove inconsistencies in the girl's story.

"Eyewitnesses most common reason for mistaken IDs," reads a story on www.borderlandnews.com, and it cites views of Roy S. Malpass, director of the criminal justice program and a psychology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso: "The single most important thing about witness memory is it can be contaminated." For the interested, there is the Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory at http://eyewitness.utep.edu, providing a `do-it-yourself kit' for assessing the fairness of an eyewitness identification line-up.

In the lingo of bookbinders, witness refers to the leaves of a book that are untrimmed and therefore show the original size of the sheet of paper.

"Even if the other leaves are trimmed, this leaf (or leaves) functions as a `witness' that the book has not been excessively cut," notes http://palimpsest.stanford.edu in its Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology. For mathematicians, a witness is a number that, as a result of its number theoretic properties, guarantees either the compositeness or primality of a number `n'.

"Witnesses are most commonly used in connection with Fermat's little theorem converse. A Pratt certificate uses witnesses to prove primality, and Miller's primality test uses witnesses to prove compositeness," according to http://mathworld.wolfram.com.

To witness is to experience important events or changes, to see things happen. "Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines; witness these trenches made by grief and care, witness the tiring day and heavy night; witness all sorrow," is a pick from Titus Andronicus. Don't take witness at face value, as Antonio cautions in The Merchant of Venice: "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!" Witnesses are more a worry for the criminals than the prosecution. Thus, Lady Macbeth advises: "Go get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hand. Why did you bring these daggers from the place?"

On the need to protect witnesses, the Law Commission recently prepared a consultation paper. "There are two broad aspects to the need for witness protection," states the paper. The first is about witnesses turning hostile, and so the need to ensure that evidence of witnesses that has already been collected at the stage of investigation is not allowed to be destroyed. We may need special procedures in criminal law "to balance the need for anonymity of witnesses on the one hand and the rights of the accused, on the other".

The second aspect, according to the Commission, is the physical and mental vulnerability of the witness and so the need for witness protection programmes.

Witness accounts can be more engaging and logic-proof than sitcom sessions, though the ultimate decisions can be as predictable as anti-climaxes.

But with high-profile cases and high-risk witnesses around, witness protection may well be an area where we may witness some reform soon.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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