The Magistrates’ Courts (Enforcement or Variation of Orders Made in Family Proceedings and Miscellaneous Provisions) Rules 2011

Request under section 38(1) of the 1972 Act to a designated officer

66.—(1) This rule applies where a designated officer receives from the Lord Chancellor a request under section 38(1) of the 1972 Act to take the evidence of any person.

(2) Subject to paragraph (3)—

(a) the person whose evidence is to be taken must be examined on oath by or before a justices’ clerk;

(b) any oral evidence must be put into writing and read to the person who gave it, who must be required to sign the document; and

(c) the justices’ clerk must certify at the foot of any document setting out the evidence of, or produced by, that person, that such evidence was taken, or document received in evidence, as the case may be, by that justices’ clerk.

(3) Where the request referred to in section 38(1) of the 1972 Act includes a request that the evidence be taken in a particular manner, the justices’ clerk by whom the evidence is taken must, so far as circumstances permit, comply with that request.

(4) For the purposes of this rule, a justices’ clerk has the same power to administer oaths as a single justice of the peace.