Truth

Truth is the mother of justice.

Veritas est justitiae mater.

Source: Halk. Max. 185; Weisman, 101m

Justice cannot exist apart from truth; every legal proceeding is, at its foundation, a search for truth, and any process that obscures truth undermines justice.

Truth fears nothing but concealment.

Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.

Source: 9 Co. 20b; Weisman, 101g

Truth is its own defense; the only thing that can defeat it is suppression. He who hides evidence betrays the truth and obstructs justice.

The suppression of the truth is the expression of a falsehood.

Suppressio veri, expressio falsi.

Source: Addington v. Allen, 11 Wend. (N.Y.) 374, 417; Wharton, Max.; Weisman, 101e

He who deliberately conceals a material fact is as culpable as one who affirmatively states what is untrue; silence, when there is a duty to speak, is a species of fraud.

He who does not freely speak the truth is a betrayer of the truth.

Qui non libere veritatem pronuntiat, proditor est veritatis.

Source: 4 Inst. Epil.; Bouv. 152; Weisman, 101b

The duty to speak truth is affirmative; a witness or officer who withholds what he knows to be true is as much a traitor to justice as one who speaks falsehood.

The law never operates without reason; truth, by whomsoever spoken, is from God.

Lex nunquam sine ratione; veritas a quocunque dicitur a Deo est.

Source: 4 Inst. 153

Truth is not diminished by the rank or station of the one who speaks it; the humblest witness may establish a fact that overturns the most powerful claim.

The law suffers nothing contrary to truth.

Lex non patitur aliquid contra veritatem.

Source: 2 Inst. 252; Weisman, 101c

No fiction, no presumption, and no procedural rule may be carried so far as to contradict established truth; where truth is known, it must prevail.