Oath-taking primitive mumbo-jumbo — lawyer

Press, 28 December 1985, Page 6

Oath-taking primitive mumbo-jumbo — lawyer

PA Auckland An Auckland lawyer says that taking the oath before giving evidence in law courts is “primitive mumbojumbo” which should be abolished. Mr Donald Dugdale, immediate past president of the Auckland District Law Society, expressed his view in the latest issue of the “Law Journal.” “Resolution of disputes by process of law is a serious business that should be conducted as rationally as we

can manage,” he said. “There should be no room in process for primitive mumbo-jumbo.” One of the pre-Christian primitive magical practices adopted by the Church was the oath — the promise made on some sacred object like a saint’s tomb, a relic or the Bible. “A breach of a promise so solemnised, it was believed, would call forth the prompt and manifest retribution of an outraged deity,” he said. “It is this magical ritual

that is still employed in courts of law when witnesses are required to swear on a Bible with an ungloved hand that the evidence they are about to give will be truthful. “Use of such sanctified promises in the marketplace died out at an early date.” He said that he had no idea whether juries differed in respect of witnesses who elected to affirm they were about to tell the truth compared with those who took the oath.