RECUSANTS, or POPISH RECUSANTS, Engl. law. Persons who refuse to make the declarations against popery, and such as promote, encourage, or profess1 the popish religion.
2. These are by law liable to restraints, forfeitures2 and inconveniences, which are imposed upon them by various acts of parliament. Happily in this country no religious sect3 has the ascendency, and all persons are free to profess what religion they conscientiously4 believe to be the right one.
RECUSATION, civ. law. A plea or exception by which the defendant5 requires that the judge having jurisdiction6 of the cause, should abstain7 from deciding upon the ground of interest, or for a legal objection to his prejudice.
2. A recusation is not a plea to the jurisdiction of the court, but simply to the person of the judge. It may, however, extend to all the judges, as when the party has a suit against the whole court. Poth. Proced. Civ. 1ere part., ch. 2, s. 5. It is a personal challenge of the judge for cause.
3. It is a maxim8 of every good system of law, that a man shall not be judge in his own cause. 2 L. R. 390; 6 L. R. 134 Ayl. Parerg. 451; Dict. de Jur. h. t.; Merl. Repert. h. t.; vide Jacob's Intr. to the Com. Civ. and Can. L. 11; 8 Co. 118 Dyer, 65. Dall. Diet. h. t.
4. By recusation is also understood the challenge of jurors. Code of Practice of Louis. art. 499, 500. Recusation is also an act, of what nature soever it may be, by which a strange heir, by deeds or words, declares he will not be heir. Dig. 29, 2, 95. See, generally, 1 Hopk. Ch. R. 1; 5 Mart. Lo. R. 292; and Challenge.
REDDENDO SINGULA SINGULIS, construction. By rendering9 each his own; for example, when two descriptions of property are given together in one mass, both the next of kin10 and the heir cannot take, unless in cases where a construction can be made reddendo singula singulis, that the next of kin shall take the personal estate aud the heir at law the real estate. 14 Ves. 490. Vide 11 East,, 513, n.; Bac. Ab. Conditions, L.
REDDENDUM, contracts. A word used substantively11, and is that clause in a deed by which the grantor reserves something new to himself out of that which he granted before, and thus usually follows the tenendum, and is generally in these words yielding and paying.
2. In every good reddendum or reservation, these things must concur12; namely, 1. It must be apt words. 2, It must be of some other thing issuing or coming out of the thing granted, and not a part of the thing itself, nor of something issuing out of another thing. 3. It must be of such thing on which the grantor may resort to distrain13 4. It must be made to one of the grantors and not to a stranger to the deed. Vid 2 Bl. Com. 299; Co. Litt. 47; Touchs 80; Cruise, Dig. tit. 32, c. 24, s. 1; Dane' Ab. Index, h. t.
