Chapter: Impediments to Testimony and the Number of Witnesses

The testimony of lineal relatives for one another is not accepted, nor is the testimony of either spouse for the other; yet their testimony against one another is accepted. Nor is the testimony of one who thereby secures a benefit for himself or averts harm from himself, nor that of an enemy against his enemy, ........

This chapter comprises two issues: the first concerns impediments to testimony, and the second, the number of witnesses. As for impediments to testimony, they are those factors that prevent a witness’s testimony from being accepted despite his fulfilling the required conditions. Linguistically, impediments is the plural of an impediment: something that stands in the way of something else.

In technical usage, an impediment is that whose presence necessarily entails absence, while its absence does not necessarily entail presence—the opposite of a condition. For the absence of a condition necessarily entails absence, whereas its presence does not necessarily entail presence. Thus, once the six previously mentioned conditions of a witness have been fulfilled, one further matter remains: the absence of impediments. If the impediments are absent, we accept his testimony and rule accordingly; but if any impediment is present, we reject his testimony.

Is the basic presumption that an impediment exists, or that it does not exist? The basic presumption is that there is no impediment. We have general texts concerning the conditions required of a witness, and we consider whether the impediments mentioned by the author are sound enough for us to qualify those general texts by them or not. The author says:

“The testimony of lineal relatives for one another is not accepted.” By lineal relatives, he means ascendants and descendants. The ascendants include mothers, fathers, grandfathers, and grandmothers; they are called ascendants because a person branches out from them. The second line consists of the descendants, and this is the descending line; the first is the ascending line,