Merchant Shipping Act, 1951 (Act No. 57 of 1951)RegulationsCourts of Marine Enquiry Regulations, 196114. Evidence |
| (1) | After the questions upon which the finding of the Court is required have been formulated in terms of paragraph (1) of regulation 13, each of the parties shall be entitled to address the Court for the purpose of opening the evidence which he intends to adduce, and produce and examine witnesses or, with the approval of the presiding officer, recall any of the witnesses who have already been examined for further examination and generally adduce evidence. The witnesses may be cross-examined by the other parties in such order as the presiding officer may direct, and may then be re-examined by the party who has produced them. The parties shall be heard and their witnesses examined, cross-examined and re-examined in such order as the presiding officer may direct. |
| (2) | Any party who has produced witnesses may at any stage of the investigation, with the approval of the presiding officer, produce and examine further witnesses, who may be cross-examined by the other parties in such order as the presiding officer may direct, and reexamined by the party who has produced them. |
| (3) | The law as to admissibility of evidence and as to the competency, examination, cross-examination and re-examination of witnesses in courts of law shall not be binding upon a Court of Marine Enquiry, but the presiding officer, may, in his discretion, disallow any question which any other member of the Court or any party proposes to put to any witness, on the ground that such question is irrelevant or that for any other cause it would be improper that the question be put, and may, in his discretion and on similar grounds, rule that the production of any book, document or thing required by any other member of the Court or any party shall not be allowed. |
| (4) | Affidavits and statutory declarations may, by permission of the presiding officer, be used as evidence. |