سلم
82
A BILL
Short title.
Manner of
ENTITLED
An Ordinance to regulate the Law as to Oaths.
Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and conseur of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited for all purposes as the Oaths Ordinance, 1910.
2.-(1.) Any Oath may be administered and taken in Administra- the form and manner following :-
tion of Oaths..
Swearing with uplifted
hand as
in Scotland.
Definition.
Commence- ment.
The person taking the Oath shall hold the New Testament, or, in the case of a Jew, the Old Testament, in his uplifted haud, and shall say or repeat after the Officer administering the Oath the words,
"I swear by Almighty God that
followed by the words of the Oath prescribed by law.
(2.) The Officer shall (unless the person about to take the Oath voluntarily objects thereto, or is physically in- capable of so taking the Oath) administer the Oath in the form and manner aforesaid without question: Provided that in the ease of a person who is neither a Christian nor a Jew, the Oath shall be administered in any manner which is now lawful.
3. If any person to whom an Oath is administered desires to swear with uplifted hand in the form and manuer in which an Oath is usually administered in Scotland he shall be permitted so to do, and the Oath shall be administered to him in such form and manner without further question.
4. In this Ordinance the word "Officer" shall menu and include any and every person duly authorized to administer onths.
5. This Ordinance shall come into operation on the day of
nineteen hundred and ten.
Memorandum.
This Bill introduces the whole of the Oaths Act, 1909, and section 5 of Oaths Act, 1888.
Section 5 of the Oaths Act, 1888, is the section which allows a witness to take the Scotch form of oath should be so desire.
F. A, HAZELAND,
Attorney General.
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