Opinion ID: 106864
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The English Cases Before the Adoption of the Constitution.

Text: In 1749 the Court of Exchequer decided East India Co. v. Campbell , 1 Ves. sen. 246, 27 Eng. Rep. 1010. The defendant in that case refused to discover certain information in a proceeding in an English court on the ground that it might subject him to punishment in the courts of India. The court unanimously held that the privilege against self-incrimination protected a witness in an English court from being compelled to give testimony which could be used to convict him in the courts of another jurisdiction. The court stated the rule to be: that this court shall not oblige one to discover that, which, if he answers in the affirmative, will subject him to the punishment of a crime . . . and that he is punishable appears from the case of Omichund v. Barker, [1 Atk. 21.] as a jurisdiction is erected in Calcutta for criminal facts: where he may be sent to government and tried, though not punishable here; like the case of one who was concerned in a rape in Ireland, and sent over there by the government to be tried, although the court of B. R. here refused to do it . . . for the government may send persons to answer for a crime wherever committed, that he may not involve his country; and to prevent reprisals. 1 Ves. sen., at 247, 27 Eng. Rep., at 1011. In the following year, this rule was applied in a case involving separate systems of courts and law located within the same geographic area. The defendant in Brownsword v. Edwards, 2 Ves. sen. 243, 28 Eng. Rep. 157, refused to discover, whether she was lawfully married to a certain individual, on the ground that if she admitted to the marriage she would be confessing to an act which, although legal under the common law, would render her liable to prosecution in ecclesiastical court. The Lord Chancellor said: This appears a very plain case, in which defendant may protect herself from making a discovery of her marriage; and I am afraid, if the court should over-rule such a plea, it would be setting up the oath ex officio; which then the parliament in the time of Charles I. would in vain have taken away, if the party might come into this court for it. The general rule is, that no one is bound to answer so as to subject himself to punishment, whether that punishment arises by the ecclesiastical law of the land. 2 Ves. sen., at 244-245, 28 Eng. Rep., at 158.