Revised Statutes of Newfoundland 1990 Chapter R-7

This is an official version.

Important Information
(Includes details about the availability of printed and electronic versions of the Statutes.)

Revised Statutes of Newfoundland 1990

CHAPTER R-7

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE USE OF SOUND RECORDING MACHINES FOR TAKING AND RECORDING EVIDENCE
Analysis

1. Short title

2. Definitions

3. Recording of evidence by machine

4. Certification of sound record

5. Reducing sound record to typewritten copy

6. Effect as evidence of sound record

7. Filing of sound records

8. Regulations

Short title

1. This Act may be cited as the Recording of Evidence Act.

RSN1970 c116 s1

2. In this Act

(a) "court" means the Supreme Court, the Provincial Court and court of a justice of the peace, and a registrar or master, and a court or tribunal, judicial or quasi-judicial, or commission or body of persons authorized by an Act or otherwise to hold hearings, take evidence and make a judgment, decree, order, report, finding or decision or otherwise exercise a judicial or quasi-judicial function or a function auxiliary to a judicial or quasi-judicial body or person;

(b) "evidence" includes judgments, decisions, opinions, speeches, reports and other matters done or said by or before a court, including matters relating to procedure;

(d) "proceeding" includes everything done before or in a court in the execution of its functions; and

(e) "sound-recording machine" means a device approved by the Supreme Court or the Attorney General which records faithfully speech and other sounds in some permanent or semi-permanent form, as, for example, upon tapes, wires, discs, cylinders, bands or other objects capable of taking and reproducing speech and other sounds.

RSN1970 c116 s2; 1977 c11 s1; 1986 c42 Sch B

3. The evidence or a portion of evidence in a proceeding may, by general or specific order of a judge, or under an order of the Attorney General in general or specific terms, be recorded by a sound recording machine.

RSN1970 c116 s3

4. (1) A sound record made under section 3 shall be certified by the judge or by the court official in charge of the sound-recording machine during the proceeding as being the record made of the evidence or portion of the evidence in the proceeding.

(2) A certificate made under subsection (1) shall, without proof of the signature of the judge or, where made by the person in charge of the sound-recording machine, without proof of his or her signature or official character, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be evidence that the sound record is the record of the evidence or portion of the evidence in the proceeding.

RSN1970 c116 s4

5. An official court reporter or a shorthand-typist may reduce to typewritten copy the whole or a part of a sound record made under section 3 and certified under section 4, and where a reporter or shorthand-typist does so he or she shall attach to the typewritten copy his or her affidavit stating that it is a true and correct transcription of the record or part of it and the typewritten copy shall then have the same effect as the original evidence.

RSN1970 c116 s5

6. The contents of a sound record made under section 3 and certified under section 4 may be reproduced by a device, machine or system of a type approved by the Supreme Court or by the Attorney General, and the contents reproduced shall have the same effect as the original evidence.

RSN1970 c116 s6

7. (1) Sound records made under section 3 shall be filed with the records of the court, or, in the case of a body not being a court, with an officer who may be designated by the Attorney General.

(2) A sound record shall not be removed from the custody of the court or of an officer appointed by the Attorney General, or erased or wiped out by a person, except upon an order of a judge of the Court of Appeal where the record is in that court, or of a judge of the Trial Division where the record is in that court, or of a Provincial Court judge where the record is in the Provincial Court, or of the Attorney General where the record is that of another court.

RSN1970 c116 s7; 1977 c11 s2; 1979 c38 s7;
1986 c42 Sch B

8. The Lieutenant-Governor in Council may make regulations to give effect to the purpose of this Act or for supplying a deficiency in this Act.

RSN1970 c116 s8