About the ancient people of the Scythians, the Greek historian, remarked Herodotus with amazement, you erzögen their children in just three disciplines: horse riding, archery and telling the truth. Whether someone has learned the first two skills, it is quite easy to find. If he’s telling the truth, is to decide for themselves in specialized Occupations just hard to come by. The legal practice should have a large interest in approaches to truth-finding, and can draw on non-linguistic Evidence for the distinction of truth and falsehood. With the colloquially as a lie detector, designated apparatus a, such an Instrument would be available. But it will be used, except in American justice-thrillers at all?
A recent study by three sociologists from the University of Aachen, according to the Polygraph – the technical term for the lie detector experienced – in the German case-law, even a “cyclical”. And, although the procedure was, in practice, scientifically controversial, and in the Supreme court to take a critical view will. You must see this Thesis, however, self-critical, because the authors have no Numbers, which proved to be an actual economy in the use of the device. Since in Germany there is no Central case law database and the expert opinion are often not in the grounds for the judgment are received, fisherman, Paul and Voigt use according to their research, only 39 sentences, with which, since 1954, a Polygraph was used. From Interviews with legal experts, the authors still come to the conclusion that the published case-law constituted probably only a fraction of the court proceedings in which the consideration of a polygraphic examination it was decided. The Polygraph is likely to actually play a not insignificant role in the search for the truth in German courts. But how is it, according to the study, a test procedure, the enjoy from a legal, scientific and social point of view, little View, be used in spite of all the criticism increasing, and this in such a Central social function in the area of how the legal system?
lie detectors wounded once-human-rights
It is not the technology but the human image of the society. The Federal court of justice (BGH) had declared the Polygraph in 1954, actually, to be unconstitutional because its use infringes the freedom of the human will. In 1998, this Constitution was repealed concerns by the BGH, however, that the controversial procedure is technically something had changed. Changed have authors, rather, the idea of what the Polygraph actually fair, so the. In 1954, the judges had justified its ban with the fact that this measurement was a technical intervention in the body, which violates the right to the protection of the human “soul space”.
The way to the body of case-law references have changed since the eighties, but it is crucial: Where the soul was to be found in the analysed Judgments now measurable body data, which provide the polygraph is a “Biofeedback”. In the course of this development, the access of the polygraph on the soul had been regarded, finally, as a problem, because the device is fair, although deliberately not directly influenced by physical processes, it allows the subject to be examined, but no “insight into the soul,” as the Supreme court.
machine may also be read out
This fundamental legitimacy of the body measurement references to a deep change in the social understanding of soul, spirit and consciousness of the people, the authors write. In the decision-making process for the admission of the polygraph in court to show that mind and consciousness are today “regarded more and more as the services of a information processing system”. The legitimacy of the polygraphic process, not do thus to the technology itself. This has not changed since 1954, except for today of course, digital would be recorded.
The body that have been considered in 1954 as a “shell of the soul,” is changed to “antagonists of the brain”. So a tech could not be seen to automated access to the Interior of the people from the eighties, as prohibited intervention in a sacred space, but as a retrieval of the cognitively stored Information. With the withdrawal of the constitutional objections, which protected the subject once in front of his machine reading, have lost the Polygraph, increasingly, his menacing character, according to the authors. Its Integration in a psychological assessment process of the data obtained down to it ascribed to and dreaded act of ownership is crucial, which is also the presentation have been removed in the apparatus “materialized Power over the subject” to a large extent. The truth is, therefore, not only speakable, but also measurable become?