ORDINANCE No. 7 OF 1857 . 381
Evidence.
No. 7 of 1857.
An Ordinance for amending the Laws relating to Juries and Evidence .
[ 1st June, 1857. ]
E it enacted and ordained by His Excellency the Governor of Hongkong, with the
BER advice of the Legislative Council thereof, in manner following, that is to say :
1. From and after the passing of this Ordinance, there are hereby extended to this Extends 15 & 16
Vict. c. 36, s. 22,
and 18 & 19
Colony the twenty-second section of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth Vict. c.42, with
certain excep
year of Her present Majesty, chapter eighty- six, relating to the Court of Chancery ; tions, to this
Colony.
and also the whole of the Act of Parliament passed in the nineteenth year of Her
Majesty, chapter forty-two, relating to oaths and notarial acts, except section four of
the last mentioned Act : And also except so much of section five of the said last men
tioned Act as doth not relate to the impounding or custody of documents, or the
tendering in evidence documents with false or counterfeit seals or signatures thereto.
2. Any person tendering in evidence within this Colony any false affidavits, affirm False affidavits,
affirma tions and
mation, or notarial acts within the meaning of section four of the said last mentioned acts.
Act, knowing the same to be false, shall, upon conviction thereof, suffer the penalties
of perjury .
3. All documents whatsoever, legally and properly filed or recorded in any Foreign Foreign docu
ments.
Court of Justice or Consulate, according to the Law and practice of such Court or Con
sulate, and all copies of such documents, shall be admissible in evidence within this
Colony, upon being proved in like manner as any documents filed or recorded in any
Foreign Court are proveable under this or any other Ordinance ; and all documents
whatsoever so filed or recorded in any Foreign Court or Consulate, and all copies of
such documents, shall , when so proved and admitted, be holden as authentic and effec
tual for all purposes of evidence as the same would be holden in such Court or Con
sulate.
4. Whenever it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court, or of the Depositions may
be read at trial
when the
Court of Petty Sessions, that the person conducting a criminal prosecution on behalf of witness is absent,
or too ill to be
the Crown is merely, by reason of the illness or absence from the Colony of, or the produced.
impracticability of serving process on, a person whose deposition shall have been duly
taken in the matter, before or on the committal of the prisoner to take his trial upon
such prosecution, unable to produce the said person as a witness upon the said trial,
then and in such case the said deposition may be read at the said trial as evidence
against the said prisoner, if the said Court shall think fit. [ Repealed by Ordinance No.
6 of 1854.]
5. A heathen witness, in any Court or before any person empowered to administer Heathen
witnesses not to
an oath, shall not be sworn either before or upon giving his testimony , unless the said be sworn,[but by
order of the
Court.
Court or person shall think fit so to direct ; in which case the said witness shall be
sworn according to his conscience. But every heathen witness shall, before the taking