Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/527

Rh as toward the individual, and vice versa; it has, besides, its own independent bases, and the other cases are essentially not competent to sustain it.

Respecting the provisions of a law embodying the principle we have been trying to elucidate, but little more can be said than to refer to the bill which has been approved by the Austrian Chamber of Deputies, and whose passage in the Upper Legislative House is anticipated. The easiest accessibility to the courts for the parties, an obligatory stipulation for the gratuitous representation of poor suitors in establishing their claim, an official preliminary investigation, public oral pleadings according to the rules of civil process, the free examination of witnesses, the designation of the amount of indemnity after an open judicial estimation, inquiry into every kind of injury that may have been suffered, and a system of procedure corresponding with these conditions, are obvious points. To these may be added the lapse of the privilege of making the claim after a properly defined interval (one year in the Austrian bill), and in cases where the condemned person has voluntarily filled out his sentence. Extreme care should, however, be taken to give a precise definition to the latter limitation; for it would be wholly unjustifiable to punish the thoughtlessness or ordinary negligence of an uneducated or imperfectly informed person, in failing to produce the evidence in his favor, with the loss of the right of appeal. But gross negligence may be considered in concrete cases to have been designed.

We have thought it proper to limit our discussion in this place to the question of the indemnification of persons who have been unjustly condemned, and have advisedly left out of view the question, closely connected with it in principle, of damages to those who have been subjected to causeless prosecutions. It is well to be satisfied for the time with securing the more important object as a beginning, without imperiling it by complicating it with other conditions. The principle of the matter is carried with the first part, while the second part of our problem may be left to mature itself and pass its course of scientific discussion. In the mean time we, who have labored for ten years in this cause, will regard the result we expect soon to obtain as only a step—as an installment—and will be encouraged by our success to strive for the attainment of the other object.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Deutsche Rundschau.