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layout: post
status: publish
published: true
title: ! 'In Dubio Contra Reum: a definition'

wordpress_id: 810
wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/?p=810
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categories:
- Academia
tags: []
comments:
- id: 6271
  author: Jacqueline Prescott
  author_email: jacquelineprescott@hotmail.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: ! 'Thank you for sharing.

    I am reading Eichmann in Jerusalem  and I did not know how to translate that phrase!!!'
- id: 6272
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: ! 'Excellent!


    I''m really glad you found this; was unsure if anybody would ever find this page
    while reading Eichmann in Jerusalem.'
- id: 6608
  author: Adrian
  author_email: blah@blah.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: Thanks! Not only encountered the same lack of search results as you, also
    reading the very same reference!
- id: 6609
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: https://www.martineve.com
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  content: Glad it helped! Enjoy the Arendt.
- id: 6692
  author: Jim Akin
  author_email: jimakin@gmail.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: ! "Thank you for this! The meaning of the phrase is pretty clear in context,
    but I thought it might have a more technical meaning. It sounds as though Arendt
    was using Latin rhetorically, rather than citing a specific legal principle?\r\n\r\nFor
    what it's worth, I'm reading the series of articles from The New Yorker that were
    eventually published in book form as \"Eichmann in Jerusalem.\" The articles share
    that title, with each of the five installments denoted by a roman numeral. \"In
    dubio contra reum\" appears in part IV, issue date March 9, 1963, on page 126."
- id: 6693
  author: Martin Paul Eve
  author_email: martin@martineve.com
  author_url: ''
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  content: Thanks for the comment! Yes, I was searching for a more detailed response
    to that which I could deduce contextually. I think, though, because of the legal
    context of Eichmann in Jerusalem that Arendt is referring directly to the legal
    principle.
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<p><i>Featured image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/peroshenka/">Пероша</a> under a CC-BY-NC license.</i></p>
<p>I am currently reading Hannah Arendt's <i>Eichmann in Jerusalem</i> and came across the phrase "<i>in dubio contra reum</i>" on p. 214. My Latin being a little rusty, and it being late in the day, I whacked the term into Google and was disappointed to find that there was no adequate definition of the term in the search results; merely band names and a German entry. Anyway, thinking about it a bit more and looking up "reum" in my Latin dictionary reveals the definition, which I thought I'd share.</p>
<p>The definition of <i>in dubio contra reum</i> is "in doubt, against the accused", meaning that, where there is doubt, the accused in a trial is not given the benefit of that doubt; they are assumed guilty.</p>
<p>In Arendt's case, for those interested, she concludes that there was a lack of corroborating evidence of Eichmann's complicity in the deportation of <i>all</i> Jews to Auschwitz and Arendt therefore applies the term to the verdict on this score.</p>