Re: Perjury in the small claims court


"Andrew McGee" <amhome@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:tY6dnYz5m78gKq_ZRVnygw@xxxxxxxxx



I do not see how perjury has anything to do with a pleading. The authority
is the Perjury Act 1911, s1, which so far as presently material reads



Perjury Act 1911, Ch. 6, s. 1 (Eng.)

1 Perjury



(1) If any person lawfully sworn as a witness or as an interpreter in a
judicial proceeding wilfully makes a statement material in that
proceeding, which he knows to be false or does not believe to be true, he
shall be guilty of perjury, and shall, on conviction thereof on
indictment, be liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven
years, or to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not
exceeding two years, or to a fine or to both such penal servitude or
imprisonment and fine.

(2) The expression "judicial proceeding" includes a proceeding before any
court, tribunal, or person having by law power to hear, receive, and
examine evidence on oath.

(3) Where a statement made for the purposes of a judicial proceeding is
not made before the tribunal itself, but is made on oath before a person
authorised by law to administer an oath to the person who makes the
statement, and to record or authenticate the statement, it shall, for the
purposes of this section, be treated as having been made in a judicial
proceeding.


But it is quite clear that this applies only to statements by witnesses
made on oath (this must apply now equally to affirmation, since anyone who
objects to being sworn is entitled to affirm - Oaths Act 1978 s5 - but it
remains beyond doubt that pleadings are not on oath.

I think you are probably right - though we aren't really supposed to speak
of "pleadings" nowadays (they are more properly statements of case) and it
is now very rare for evidence to be given to a court on affidavit in any
application to the court. Usually a witness statement, ending in a Statement
of Truth, will satisfy the rules. It seems rather an anachronism to require
a person to be "duly sworn" even if it only involves affirming, before he is
liable to prosecution for perjury. I haven't seen the full text of the 1911
Perjury Act and s.5 refers to perjury otherwise than when on oath, but it
might be stretching a point to apply that section to a witness statement.



.

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