On oral proceedings - Teaching of Ptahhotep

The beneficial role and remedial effect of oral proceedings in judicial conflict resolution, i.e., of the judge listening to your case, were recognised already at the dawn of civilisation, in the Egyptian society more than 4000 years ago, as the following fragment shows.  

• If you are to be a [magistrate]
  be patient in your hearing when the petitioner speaks,
  do not halt him until his belly is emptied
  of what he had planned to have said.
  The victim loves to sate his heart
  even more than accomplishing what he came for -
  if a petition is halted,
  people say 'but why did he break that rule?'.
  Not everything for which he petitions can come to be,
  but a good hearing is soothing for the heart.

Teaching of Ptahhotep / The Instruction of Ptahhotep is an ancient Egyptian literary composition by the Vizier Ptahhotep around 2375–2350 BC (!) during the rule of King Djedkare Isesi of the Fifth Dynasty. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maxims_of_Ptahhotep) 

Source of the translation: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html with an edit marked by square brackets. 

A later dating of the composition is 1991–1802 BC (Twelfth Dynasty). (see here https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html)