Sunday 9 September 2012

Testification in the court

Who can testify in the court?

The answer to this question is present in Article 3 of Qanon-e-shahadat Ordinance 1984 in the following words:-

3. Who may testify. All persons shall be competent to testify unless the Court considers that they are prevented from understanding the questions put to them, or from giving rational answers to those questions, by tender year, extreme old age, disease, whether of body or mind, or any other cause of the same kind;
Provided that a person shall not be competent to testify if he has been convicted by a Court for perjury or giving false evidence:
Provided further that the provisions of the first proviso shall not apply to a person about whom the Court is satisfied that he has repented thereafter and mended his ways:
Provided further that the Court shall determine the competence of a witness in accordance with the qualifications prescribed by the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah for a witness, and, where such witness is not forthcoming, the Court may take the evidence of a witness who may be available.
Explanation. A lunatic is not incompetent to testify, unless he is prevented by his lunacy from understanding the questions put to him and giving rational answers to them.
COMMENTARY
Child witness. Evidentiary value. Evidence of child witness is to be assessed with care and caution.4
Child witness, evidence of. Value. Evidence of a child witness being a delicate matter, was not safe to rely upon unless corroborated.5
Witness. Who may testify.6
Child witness. Competency. What the law requires is not the factor of age, but the intelligence of a particular child witness in the circumstances of the case.7
Competency of persons to testify. Rule enunciated in Art. 3 of Qanun-e-Shahadat , 1984, is not an absolute or inflexible rule.8

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