Today's statement: The trouble with witnesses

More than 30 years ago, a British court heard a much-discussed case, Chapman v. Honeygo.

Honeyigo is the landlord of a house. This man is very strange and moody. One day he saw that a tenant, Haland, was not pleased, and he wanted to forcibly drive the house away. So the two had an argument over this, and they also went to court. When Haaland and Honeyigo argue, another tenant, Chapman, hears it clearly and knows that Honeyigo is wrong, and Honeyigo has a complete temper attack and wants to drive the people away. At the court hearing harland v. Honeygo for "illegal eviction," Chapman, at the request of the judge, confirmed that Honeygo was indeed an "unlawful eviction."

Who knows, the case has not yet been decided, and in retaliation, Honeyigo informs Chapman that he must move out within two days. Chapman was very aggrieved, first, he was forced to testify in court, and second, he was really homeless when he moved out. In this way, he also went to the court to sue Honeygo, hoping that the court would rule to stop Honeyigo's wantonness.

The Court of First Instance was fair in holding that there was no legal system that required witnesses to testify and refused to grant redress when a witness was found to have been violated. It is the duty of the Tribunal to protect witnesses by all feasible means. Otherwise all legal proceedings regimes will be worthless. Honeyigo's abuse of relocation notices to threaten to violate Chapman is a challenge to the rights and obligations of witnesses. Therefore, Honeyigo had to retract the removal notice.

But Honeyigo was very arrogant. He said, you can sentence me to retract this notice, but you can't stop me from keeping making new notices. If you rule that a notice is invalid, I will issue a new notice. See who can toss.

Thus, the court of first instance was advised not to invalidate Honego's notice of removal, since such a decision was indeed of little significance. However, the court of first instance is more real. It told Honego that as long as he could not prove that the relocation notice was not related to retaliation, the court would rule all the notices invalid and that the court was prepared to "toss and turn" with Honego.

Unexpectedly, in the court of appeal, the judge also gave Honeyigo a legal "reason". The Court of Appeal judge said that the court could not and had no right to interfere with a private contract such as a house lease. The ownership of the house is Honego's, he can rent it to whomever he wants, he doesn't want to rent it to whom, he can drive him away after the lease expires, how can the court force a private landlord like Honiago to rent to whom? Honeyigo could punish him in other ways, but not to the detriment of his ownership. In this way, Chapman was in turn defeated.

After the second-instance verdict, Honigo strode out of the court of appeal in a fit of rage, while Chapman walked home dejectedly, vowing never to do such a "stupid thing" again.

In the United Kingdom, this jurisprudence teaches that witnesses have a duty to testify in court, but that this does not entitle them to protection against private property rights. In other words, when you are using or renting private property, you can and should confirm certain wrongdoings of the owner, but this does not protect you from the landlord's difficulties in using the property.

In fact, as soon as this case came out, there were really fewer and fewer witnesses who were unfavorable to the owners. Many Britons are complaining that this corrupts the dignity of the legal procedure system. But what can be done? Who makes many Britons, on the other hand, so fond of absolute private property?