May the judge rule by his own knowledge, even if it contradicts the evidence presented by the opposing party?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: May the judge rule by his own knowledge, even if it contradicts the evidence presented by the opposing party, due to the eloquence he possesses?
Answer:
No, he does not rule by his own knowledge. He rules based on the testimony or the confession. The burden of proof is on the claimant, and the oath is on the one who denies it. This is because if he rules by his own knowledge, he is suspected. If he rules without evidence and without a confession, he is suspected in this matter. So he rules by what appears to him. But if he knows that the evidence is invalid, he requests a second piece of evidence, or requests two witnesses to corroborate the evidence, or refers the matter to someone else. Yes.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: May the judge rule by his own knowledge, even if it contradicts the evidence presented by the opposing party, due to the eloquence he possesses?
Answer:
No, he does not rule by his own knowledge. He rules based on the testimony or the confession. The burden of proof is on the claimant, and the oath is on the one who denies it. This is because if he rules by his own knowledge, he is suspected. If he rules without evidence and without a confession, he is suspected in this matter. So he rules by what appears to him. But if he knows that the evidence is invalid, he requests a second piece of evidence, or requests two witnesses to corroborate the evidence, or refers the matter to someone else. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [476 -858] هل للقاضي أن يحكم بعلمه، ولو كان خلاف ما أظهره الخصم من البينة؟ - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.