PART IV - PROVISIONS RELATING TO CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

100 Power to summon material witnesses and examine persons present

(1) Any Court may at any stage of any proceeding under this Act, of its own motion or on the application of any party, summon any person as a witness, or examine any person in attendance though not summoned as a witness, or recall and re-examine any person already examined, and the Court shall, unless the circumstances make it impossible to do so, summon and examine or recall and re-examine any such person if his evidence, or further evidence, appears to it essential to the just decision of the case :

Provided that the prosecutor, or the barrister and solicitor or pleader, if any, for the prosecution, and the accused, or his barrister and solicitor or pleader, if any, shall have the right to cross-examine any such person, and the Court shall adjourn the case for such time, if any, as it thinks necessary to enable such cross-examination to be adequately prepared if, in its opinion, either party may be prejudiced by the calling of any such person as a witness.

(2) The provisions of section 49 of the Courts Act 1972 shall apply mutatis mutandis in respect of any person who fails to attend before any Court in obedience to a summons issued under the preceding subsection as though that summons had been issued under section 48 of the said Courts Act.

101 Evidence to be given on oath or affirmation

Every witness in a criminal cause or matter shall be examined upon oath or affirmation, and the Court before which any witness attends shall have full power and authority to administer the usual oath or affirmation :

Provided that the Court may at any time, if it thinks it just and expedient for reasons to be recorded in the proceedings, take without oath or affirmation the evidence of any person who by reason of immature age ought not, in the opinion of the Court, to be admitted to give evidence on oath or affirmation ; the fact of the evidence having been so taken shall be recorded in the proceedings.

102 Refractory witnesses

Any person who, attending either in obedience to a summons or by virtue of a warrant, or being present in court and being verbally required by the Court to give evidence :

(a) refuses to be sworn or affirmed ;
(b) having been sworn or affirmed, refuses to answer any question properly put to him ; or
(c) refuses or neglects to produce any document or thing which he is required to produce,
without in any such case offering any sufficient excuse for such refusal or neglect, is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for six months and a fine of two hundred dollars.