Section 179 - Interpretation

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,

“action” includes a suit, proceeding or any other matter conducted before a Court;

“an incompetent” is a person under a disability imposed by law;

“burden of persuasion” has the meaning assigned to it in section 10 (1);

“burden of producing evidence” has the meaning assigned to it in section 11 (1);

“character” means a person’s generalised disposition made up of the aggregate of the traits, including traits of honesty, peacefulness, temperance, skill or care of that person and their opposites;

“committee” means a person, committee or other representative authorised by law to protect the person or property or both of an incompetent, and to act for the incompetent in matters affecting the person or property or both of the incompetent;

“conduct” includes active and passive behaviour, both verbal and non-verbal;

“Court” includes the Superior Court of Judicature and the other court which constitute the Judiciary;

“crime” has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29);

“enactment” means an enactment including this Act;

“essential facts” are facts which must be established to make out a cause of action or defence as determined by substantive law;

“evidence” means testimony, writings, material objects, or any other things presented to the senses that are offered to prove the existence or non-existence of a fact:

“Justice” includes a Justice of a superior court of record, a chairman of a Regional Tribunal, a member or members of a Court conducting a trial and a Magistrate;

“law” includes constitutional, statutory, decisional law and the common law within the meaning of article 11 of the Constitution;

“perceive” means to acquire knowledge through one’s own senses;

“proof” means the establishment by evidence of a requisite degree of belief concerning a fact in the mind of the tribunal of fact or the Court;

“public entity” includes a State, a political sub-division of a State, an organisation or association of States and a public authority or an agency of the public authority;

“public officer” means an officer, agent, employee or other representative of a public entity acting in the course of duty as officer, agent, employee or representative of the public entity;

“relevant evidence” means evidence including evidence relevant to the credibility of a witness or hearsay declarant, which makes the existence of a fact which is of consequence to the determination of the action more or less probable than it would be without the evidence;

“routine practice” means a regular response to a repeated specific situation;

“tribunal of fact” includes a trier of fact and

(a) the jury, and

(b) the Court when the Court is trying an issue of fact other than one relating to the admissibility of evidence;

“writing” includes handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, mechanical or electronic recording, and any other means of recording upon a tangible thing, a form of communication or representation, including letters, words, pictures, sounds or symbols, or combinations of those things.

(2) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,

“cross-examination” means the examination of a witness other than by the party who called the witness;

“examination by leave of the Court” means a further examination which the Court allows;

“examination-in-chief” means the first examination of a witness by the party who called the witness;

“re-examination” means the examination of a witness by the party who called the witness after the witness has been cross-examined.