Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Choshen Mishpat/29
Paragraph 1- Once the witnesses have testified in court and it is past kidei dibur, they cannot retract. How so? If the witness said I erred, I made a mistake and now I remember the matter differently or I said it out of fear, we do not listen to him- even if he provides a rationale to his retraction. Similarly, he cannot add a condition to his testimony. There are those that say he may add a condition. However, in a situation where it is clear that he erred, such as where the court demanded he bring witnesses to testify that he is not a fraudster, he brings them and the court asks him do you know him as a fraudster, and they say yes, and the party responds “you know that I am a fraudster?!” and they say we said you are not a fraudster, we believe their latter statement because it is assumed that a person does not bring witnesses to harm him and they certainly erred. Similarly, in any error that witnesses often make, they themselves are believed and there is no issue of re-testifying. Similarly, if they don’t contradict the substance of their words, such as where there words were vague and can be interpreted in one of two ways- one more probable than the other, we can conform their testimonies in any practical way in the same manner that we explain two witnesses that contradict each other in order that the testimonies conform. In a situation where they placed a cherem in the synagogue that anyone who has testimony should testify before he leaves the synagogue, and the witnesses come after they leave the synagogue and say we didn’t recall at the time but now we remember, they may testify since they were originally silent and never said they did not know. Even in a case where they said they don’t know, if they can provide a rationale as to why they said it, they may testify since they did not say the reverse of what they said later.
Paragraph 2- Witnesses that claimed they testified falsely are believed with respect to themselves and must pay any loss they caused through their testimony.
Paragraph 3- Although generally saying I did not see is not a valid proof, where two people were together and one says I did not see, it is as if he told the other you did not see and it is considered a contradiction. If, however, a witness says so and so was with me and that person says he was not with him, that is not a contradiction, because a witness does not pay attention as to who is with him at the time of the incident.