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· EVIDENCE.
No. 2 of 1889.
405
(c) "The court" includes the Chief Justice and any other judge, also every magistrate, justice, officer of any court, commissioner, arbitrator, or other person having, by law or by consent of parties, authority to hear, receive, and examine · evidence with respect to or concerning any action, suit, or other proceeding civil or criminal, or with respect to any matter submitted to arbitration or ordered to be inquired into or investigated under any commission.
PART I.
ADMISSIBLE WITNESSES AND EVIDENCE.
3. The following persons only shall be incompetent to give evidence in any proceedings
Incompe- tency from immature age or unsoundness
(1) children under seven years of age, unless they appear capable of receiving just impressions of the facts respecting which they are examined and of relating them truly; and
(2) persons of unsound mind, who, at the time of their examination, appear incapable of receiving just impressions of the facts respecting which they are examined or of relating them truly; and no person who is known to be of unsound mind shall be liable to be summoned as a witness without the consent previously obtained of the court or person before whom his attendance is required.
c. 83, s. 1.
4. In all proceedings before the court, the parties and the husbands and wives of the parties thereto, and the persons in whose behalf any proceedings may be brought, or instituted, or opposed, or defended, shall except as hereinafter excepted, be competent and compellable to give evidence, either viva voce or by deposition, according to the practice of the court, on behalf of either or any of the parties to the proceedings.
and wife.
5. Nothing in this Ordinance shall render any husband competent or compellable to give evidence for or against his wife, or any wife competent or compellable to give evidence for or against her husband, in any criminal proceedings.
14 & 15 Vict. c. 99, s. 3; 16 & 17 Vict. c. 83, s. 2.
* But see No. 14 of 1906, ss. 2, 5,
*