COMPETENCE, or COMPETENCY. As a law term, used in the sense both of authority and of legal ability. It is in the former sense that it is employed in the law of France and of other Latin countries, a. the equivalent of our term 'jurisdiction,' the competence of a tribunal being its authority or jurisdiction over a given per son or proceeding.
In English and American law, the word is specifically used to denote the legal fitness or eligibility of a witness to be heard, or of a judge or juror to participate in the trial of a cause. Competency, in the legal sense of the term, does not refer to mental or physical ability, but to purely legal grounds of qualification—as that a judge or juror shall not be personally interested in the issue to be tried; that a witness shall not be so related to the transaction on which the suit is based as to be incapacitated by law from giving evidence thereof. Such facts as the credibility of a witness, the relevancy of his testimony, or even his actual knowledge of the transaction in question, have no bearing the question of his competency. Ile may be
competent to participate as a. witness, and may yet be utterly untrustworthy or ignorant of the facts involved in the issue. So, not having been an actual, percipient witness of the facts to which he is called upon to testify, he may have his testimony excluded as mere hearsay, without thereby having his legal competency questioned. In that case it is not the witness, but the evi dence offered by him, that is 'incompetent.' Com petency, whether of judge, or juror, or witness, is always presumed, until it is impeached and the contrary shown. The question is one for the court, which may inquire into the facts for the purpose of arriving at a judgment upon it. The law as to the competency of witnesses will be considered under the title WurxEss. See, also, EVIDENCE; JUDGE; JURY; and the authorities there referred to.