Language of the court I.

Structure of a civil trial, Examination-in-chief, Cross-examination,

Re-examination

EXAMINATION-IN-CHIEF
- The examination-in-chief aims to get the witness to tell the court his or her version of
events. In practice, the witness statement exchanged before the trial is often the
witness’s evidence-in-chief. The lawyer will then seek explanatory comments from the
witness where necessary.
- Where a witness does give evidence-in-chief in full before the court, the lawyer should
take the witness through all the evidence that s/he wishes to obtain from that witness.
Vital facts should not be omitted.
- Leading questions are not allowed during the examination-in-chief. These are
questions that contain their answers. Often, but not always, they are questions to
which the only answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. For example, the question, ‘Did you last see
him at 10.00 am?’ is a leading question. It should be rephrased as, ‘When did you last
see him?’
- Guidelines for the advocate
- At the beginning of the examination-in-chief, you should ask the witness to introduce
himself or herself to the court by providing details of his/her name, address, and, if
relevant to the case, employment details. Then you should refer the witness to the
dispute being tried and to the point at which his or her evidence begins. You should
then take the witness through the evidence in a logical way. It is usually best to
approach the evidence in chronological order. Then stop. Do not repeat yourself.
- Generally, questions beginning with what, where, who, when, why are open questions
and are the best way of obtaining information on examination-in-chief
- If you think the cross-examination is likely to reveal unhelpful information, consider
whether it might be better to introduce it in evidence during your examination-in-
chief.

RE-EXAMINATION
- Finally, the examining advocate has the opportunity to re-examine the witness on any
matters that arose during the cross-examination. The purpose of the re-examination is
to allow the examining advocate to salvage evidence shaken in cross-examination and
restore the witness’s credibility. No new evidence may be admitted in re-examination
without the leave of the judge.
- The rule against leading questions applies to re-examination as it does to examination-
in-chief