112 When the Constitutive Assembly decided to establish criminal juries in 1791, the debate began on the principle of orality, and hence, on the desirability of a theory of proof. Three fronts appeared. Rey and Prugnon supported the recording of all statements in the main trial; they also preferred to maintain rules of proof. Robespierre, in turn, preferred orality in the main trial. Insofar as theories of proof were concerned, he preferred a negative theory of proof. The victorious third front was represented by du Port.^^ According to du Port, the Constitutive Assembly had already, in establishing the jury system, committed itself to the abolition of legal rules of proof. Should statements be written, this would automatically lead to the necessity for rules of proof. According to du Port, all rules of proof were absurd, for each criminal deed entailed its own kind of evidence; besides, the value of a witness statement could not be established beforehand. The negative theorv, supported by Robespierre, seemed equally unacceptable to du Port; if jurvmen had a record [of the pre-trial] in hand, they could not freely forman opinion of their own. After heated discussions, du Port gained a decisive victorv on September 16, 1792.^^ Against the background of the unhappy memories of the ancien régime judicial administration, the eloquence with which the superior ability of laymen not spoiled by legal education, as compared to professional judiciary, was presented in the French theory becomes understandable: “Amésure que se débat s’avance et s’anime, ils resolvent une conviction intime et s’impregnent de la vérité par tous les sens et par tous les facultés de leur intelligence. Cette conviction-la, dont les éléments sont simples et vrais, qui est principalement de sentiment, qui est celle de tous les hommes non légistes, non savants, non exercés, mais qui ont avec un coeur droit, un jugement sain, est la conviction humaine dans sa pureté, dans sa sincerite naturelle.”^^ Thus, the mystical capacity of lay jurors to arrive at correct decisions intuitively, trusting on their natural abilities and virtues only, was idealized. Said Dumont: “Éclairez les hommes, mettez-es en état de suivre et d’apprécier les operations judiciaires, et vous aurez un frein contre toutes les iniquités.”"^*^ According to the post-revolutionary legal literature, it was difficult or impossible to pre-establish any rules for evidentiary evaluation. The amount necessarv to convict the accused could not be determined beforehand; instead, the certainty of guilt was formed in the “spirit of each juror” according to “les actes, les faits, les vraisemblances qui le frappent et qui déterminent son vote dans sa Feldh.iusen 1966 pp. 78—79. The negative theorv of proof combined the requirements of moral persuasion and the legal full proof as the basis of judgment, see Chapter 8. Ibid. pp. 79-86. Thouret before the Constitutive Assembly, cited in Cramer 1966 p. 175. ■*2 Bentham 1823 p. ix.
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