Legal Definitions - reprobator

In historical Scots law, a reprobator was a formal legal challenge used to question the suitability or reliability of a witness in a court case. Essentially, it was an attempt to either prevent a witness from testifying at all (to disqualify them) or to nullify the testimony they had already provided. This challenge was typically raised when there were significant concerns that a witness was "objectionable" due to issues like bias, lack of credibility, or incompetence, which would make their evidence unreliable or unfair to one of the parties.

Here are some examples illustrating how a reprobator might have been used:

• Imagine a historical dispute over land ownership, where a key witness is called to testify about the boundaries of the property. If it came to light that this witness was a close relative of one of the parties and stood to gain financially if that party won the case, the opposing side could have raised a reprobator. Their aim would be to disqualify the witness entirely, arguing that their direct personal interest made their testimony inherently biased and therefore unreliable for the court.

• Consider a case involving a historical contract, where a witness testifies to having been present during its signing many decades prior. If the opposing legal team discovered compelling evidence that the witness was either not yet born or was a very young child at the time of the contract's signing, they could initiate a reprobator. In this scenario, the challenge would be to invalidate the testimony already given, on the grounds that the witness lacked the capacity or competence to accurately recall or understand such events from so long ago.

• In a historical criminal trial, a witness for the prosecution provides crucial testimony. Later, the defense uncovers evidence suggesting that this witness had previously been convicted of perjury (lying under oath) in another unrelated case. The defense could then raise a reprobator, seeking to invalidate the witness's testimony in the current trial. The argument would be that the witness's proven history of dishonesty makes their current evidence untrustworthy and objectionable, thereby compromising the fairness of the proceedings.