The Criminal Justice Act 1967 (c 80) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

. Section 9 allows uncontroversial witness statements to be read in court instead of having to call the witness to give live testimony in the courtroom, if it will not be necessary to challenge their evidence in

cross-examination In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) and ...

. The rule in section 9 was not new in 1967; it was a re-enactment of a law which had previously appeared in the

Criminal Justice Act 1925 The Criminal Justice Act 1925 (15 & 16 Geo.5 c.86) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Most of it has been repealed. Section 36 of the Act makes it an offence to make a false statement to obtain a passport. The maximum sentence ...

and the Criminal Justice Act 1948. Section 13 removed the requirement for unanimous verdicts and permitted majority verdicts for juries in England and Wales. (This section was repealed and replaced by the

Juries Act 1974 The Juries Act 1974 (c. 23) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to its long title, the purpose of the Act is "to consolidate certain enactments relating to juries, jurors and jury service with corrections and improvemen ...

.) Section 89 makes it an offence to lie in a witness statement (since

perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

only applies to lies told in court).

References

*"Criminal Justice Act 1967". Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales. Fourth Edition. LexisNexis. 2010 Reissue
Volume 11(1)
Page 429. 2008 Reissue
Volume 12(1)
Page 451. *John Burke (ed). "Criminal Justice Act 1967". Current Law Statutes Annotated 1967. Sweet & Maxwell. Stevens & Sons. London. W Green & Son. Edinburgh. 1967. Chapter 80
Google Books
*Brian Harris. "A Short Guide to the Criminal Justice Act 1967." Justice of the Peace Ltd. 1968. Reviewed a
41
Police Journal 128.

External links

The Criminal Justice Act 1967
as amended from the National Archives.
The Criminal Justice Act 1967
as originally enacted from the National Archives. {{UK legislation United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1967 Criminal law of the United Kingdom

See also

References

External links