Court may
relieve Witness
from answer.
ing certain
Questions.
Reasonable Grounds for
132
CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE-HONGKONG.
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.
7.- If a witness be asked any question relating to a matter not relevant to the suit or proceeding, except in so far as it affects the credit of the witness by injuring his character, the Court shall decide whether or not the witness shall be compelled to answer it, and may, if it think fit, warn the witness that he is not obliged to answer it..
8. No such question shall be asked, unless the person asking it has such Question. reasonable grounds for believing that the imputation it conveys is well
founded.
Questions in-
decent and scandalous.
Needlessly offensive.
Entries in Books of Account.
Government Gazettes.
Proclamations, Acts of State, &c.
Books of Science, Maps, Charts.
Foreign Law.
Fublic Maps.
In what Language.
How divided.
F: cts known to Witness.
9. The Court may forbid any questions or inquiries which it regards as indecent or scandalous, although such questions or inquiries may have some bearing on the questions before the Court, unless they relate to facts in issue, or to matters necessary to be known in order to determine whether or not the facts in issue existed.
10.-The Court shall forbid any question which appears to it to be intended to insult or annoy, or which, though proper it itself, appears to the Court needlessly offensive in form.
Documentary Evidence.
LV.—Entries in books of account kept in the course of business with such a reasonable degree of regularity as shall be satisfactory to the Court, shall be admissible in evidence, whenever they refer to a matter into which the Court has to inquire, but shall not alone be sufficient evidence to charge any person with liability.
2.-The Hongkong Gazette and any Government Gazette of any coun- try, colony, or dependency under the dominion of the British Crown, be proved by the bare production thereof before the Court.
may
3.-All proclamations, acts of state, whether legislative or executive, nominations, appointments, and other official communications of the Gov- ernment, appearing in any such Gazette, may be proved by the production of such Gazette, and shall be primâ facie proof of any fact of a public nature which they were intended to notify.
4. The Court may, on matters of public history, literature, science, or art, refer, for the purposes of evidence, to such published books, maps, 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- ment of a foreign country, and purporting to contain the 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 the authority of any government, or of any public municipal body, and not made for the purpose of any litigated question, shall prima facie be deemed to be correct, and shall be admitted in evidence without further proof.
Affidavits.
LVI.-Every affidavit used in the Court must be in the English
language.
2. It must be in the first person, and must be divided into paragraphs numbered consecutively.
3. Every affidavit used in the Court must contain only a statement 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.
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