BOUND BY LAW OF MOSES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12259, 9 June 1914, Page 2

BOUND BY LAW OF MOSES.

LOVE FOR BROTHER'S WIFE HELD TO BE A CRIME. By a decision of Scottish judges a law which was in operation in the time of Moses is held to be. still a part of the criminal code of Scotland. The judgment was given in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh by a bench of live judges in a case in which Martin Ryan, a. young man,. was charged with having, in his brother's house, Gonroek, misconducted himself with his brother's wife, contrary to Act 1, James VI., clip, 14, anil the 18th Chapter of Leviticus incorporated therein. Counsel lor accused challenged the. relevancy of the indictment 'in that it did not refer to the crime of incest according to the Scots law. It was pointed out that there was only one .case reported where a man was convicted of this offence. That was in 1765. In 1624 there wa +.? case in which a man was convicted of misconduct with his brother's widow, by whom he had four children. In both illstances the death sentence followed. Counsel maintained that the legislature had failed to make such misconduct a 'crime, and said that the sixteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus was directed against polyandry, which aeutally existed among the Canaanites. Counsel for the Crown maintained the relevance of the indictnjent, and contended that- there' was no ambiguity about the sixteenth verse of the 18th chapter of Leviticus. Giving judgment, the Court unaniomusly held that the indictment was relevant, their lordships being unable to discover any ambiguity or dubiety as to the significance of the 16th verse of the 18th. chapter of Leviticus. The prohibition was clear, express, and unambiguous, and they were bound to give effect to what was there so distinctly 1 laid down. The Lord Justice-General (Lord Strothclyde) said that all that the Act of 1567 did was to enact the punishment of death for offences which the. 18th chapter of Leviticus forbade. Verses 6 to 17 contained a list of examples or illustrations of what was meant by the expression "near of kin," and from an examination of those verses it would appear that the general proposition expressed applied both to the degrees of affinity and •consanguinity. Tlu?re was therefore no doubt that the decree in the ancient statute embraced both affinity and consanguinity. It had been argued that verse 16 had no relation to incest, but was confined exclusively to the custom of polyandry, and forbade expressly any woman having two brothers as husbands at the same time. He could not think so. The words of the verse would not bear that construction. They might entertain their own views with regard to- the propriety and wisdom of retaining that ancient statute in the Criminal Code of Scotland, but, in the meantime, they could only give effective expression to them in the sentence which they thought it their duty to pronounce if they were, to confine themselves to their prop&r functions as interpreters, and not makers, of.the law. The other Judges concurred. Counsel for'the Crown, in view of the time that accused had been in prison, moved the Court for leave to "desert the diet simpliciter" (not to proceed further with the. case). Lord Justice-General: A very proper motion. Accused was then dismissed from the bar.