CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE-HONGKONG
Documentary Evidence.
301
LV.-Entries in book of account kept in the course of business with Entries in Book such a reasonable degree of regularity as shall be satis.actory to the Court, of Account. shall be admissible in evidence, whenever they refer to a matter into which the Court has to enquire, but shall not alone be sufficient evidence to charge any person with liability.
Gazette.
2.-The Hongkong Gazette and any Government Gazette of any country, Government colony, or dependency under the dominion of the Britis. Crown, may be proved by the bare production thereof before the Court.
Acts of State,
3.-All proclamations, acts of state, whether legislative or executive, Proclamations, nominations, appointments, and other official communications of the Govern- &c. ment, app aring in any such Gazette, may be proved by the production. of such Gazette, and shall be primú facie proof of any fact of a public nature which they were intended to notify.
4. Te Court may, on matters of public history, literature, science, Books of
Science, Mapa, or act, refer, for the purposes of evidence, to such published books, maps, Charts, or charts as the Court shall consider to be of authority on the subject to which they relate.
5.-Books printed or published under the authority of the govern- Foreign Law. ment of a foreign country, and purporting to contain te statutes, code, or other written law of such country, and also printed and published books of reports of decisions of the courts of such country, and books proved to be commonly admitted in such courts as evidence of the law of such country, shall be admissible as evidence of the law of such foreign country.
6. All maps made under ti e authority of any government, or of any public municipal body, and not made forte purpose of any litigated question, shall prima facie be deemed to be correct, and s all be admitted in evidence without further proof.
Affidavits.
.
Public Maps.
Language.
LVI.-Every affidavit used in the Court must be in the English language. In what 2.-It must be in the first person, and must be divided into paragraphs How divided, numbered consecutively.
Facts known to
3.-Every affidavit use in the Court must contain only a statement witnesses, of facts and circumstances as to which the witness swears, either on his
own personal knowledge, or from information which he believes to be true. Information
4. Where the belie in the truth of the matter of fact sworn to from others, arises from information received from another person, the name of such person must be stated.
5.Where there are many erasures, interlineations, or alterations, Erasures, la- terlineations, so that the affidavit proposed to be sworn is illegible or difficult to read, &c. or is, in the judgment of the officer before whom it is proposed to be sworn, so written as to give any facility for being added to, or in any way fraudulently altered, he may refuse to take the affidavit in its existing form, and may require it to be re-written in a clear and legible and unobjectionable manner.
6. Any affidavit sworn before any judge, officer, or other person in Before whom the United Kingdom or in any British colony, possession, or settlement to be sworn. authorized to take affidavits, or before any commissioner duly authorized by the Supreme Court to take affidavits in the United Kingdom or abroad, may be used in the Cour: in all cases where affidavits are admissible.
7.-Any affidavit sworn in any foreign parts out of Her Majesty's In Foreign; dominions before a judge or magistrate, being authenticated by the official Parts. seal of the court to which he is attached or by a public notary, or before a British minister, consul, vice-consul, or consular agent, may be used in the Court in all cases where affidavits are admissible.