REPARATION TO INNOCENT CONVICTS. 513 



as toward the individual, and vice versa ; it has, besides, its own inde- 

 pendent bases, and the other cases are essentially not competent to sus- 

 tain 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 antici- 

 pated. The easiest accessibility to the courts for the parties, an obliga- 

 tory 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 exami- 

 nation 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 inter- 

 val (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 scien- 

 tific 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, 



VOL. XXV.— 38 



