Question

Good evening!
I read an article by the Rabbi in which you criticized a judge who claimed that according to the Torah, a state’s witness is invalid because he has a personal stake, and you argued that whichever way you look at it: if this is an inherent disqualification like a relative, then the state does not conduct itself according to a biblical decree; and if it is due to concern for falsehood, then of course the prosecution uses investigations to check that.
I think his words can be explained as follows: it is true that there are means to investigate the testimony, but the Torah, even in cases where the disqualification is due to concern for falsehood, does not allow the testimony to be investigated and thereby upheld.
And that is because the Torah taught that a person who has a personal stake—even if there is reason to extract the truth from his words—still does not bear the status of a witness. This is because the Torah revealed that one cannot know where the interest ends and the falsehood begins (compare the well-known words of the Hazon Ish about bribery).
Put differently: whichever way you look at it, if there is concern for falsehood then he is not a witness; and if there is a way to substantiate the testimony, then that is merely an assessment, which a religious court does not rule by, and not testimony. (The only practical difference between saying this is a disqualification in testimony due to concern for falsehood, or a disqualification in the very status of “witness” like a relative, would be regarding testimony that becomes void.)
And this perhaps fits with Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s words, that a witness gives power to the religious court (as opposed to matters of prohibitions, where in principle there is no obligation to accept his word, only to rely on it); so a witness for whom there is concern of falsehood cannot obligate the religious court, and therefore does not bear the status of a “witness.”
Changing the subject, I also find it difficult: how do Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s words fit with the famous definition of Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, that the simple meaning is not that the religious court merely relies on the witnesses, but rather that it supposedly sees the story through them, in his words: “The witnesses are the glasses of the religious court” (and in fact the Avnei Nezer gave a similar definition in his explanation of how a witness can become a judge)?
Thank you