Order in Council Prescribing the Treatment of Slave Evidences.

ORDER IN COUNCIL,

 

 

WHEREAS great inconvenience has been experienced by the owners or masters of slaves, from the confinement of slaves to give evidence pending the investigation of causes and complaints, in which the evidence of such slaves is required; and for the want of some certain and defined method of treating slaves in such cases, independently of the bad example and degradation of moral feeling likely to result from such confinement;

 

His Excellency Mark Anthony Bozon, Lieutenant-Colonel administering the Government, taking the premises into consideration, by and with the advice of the Privy Council, is pleased to order,

 

1. That in future the owner or master of any slave required as a witness in any case, shall have due notice thereof from the proper party, and shall be bound to produce such slave to give evidence at the time and place required, under a penalty of 100 livres, unless some valid reason be given by or on behalf of the master or owner for not producing such slave.

 

2. That upon any witness not being so produced, the case in which such witness may be required is to stand over until the witness shall be brought by compulsory means; and the witness may then, as a matter of necessity, be imprisoned until the investigation or trial shall take place.

 

3. That any owner or master, or any free person, who shall either tamper with any such slave witness, or cause him to be so tampered with, or shall deter or attempt to deter any such slave witness from giving evidence, shall be liable to a penalty of 200 livres, and to be further punished by law for such criminal offence; and that any male slave offending in like manner shall be liable to corporal punishment and imprisonment, or either, at the discretion of the court; and that any female slave so offending, shall be liable to solitary confinement, and such other confinement, or either, as the Court may direct.

 

4. Provided always, That all Judges, the Protector of Slaves, and all public prosecutors, may at all times direct the imprisonment of a slave witness, according to their discretion, when they shall have good reason to apprehend that the ends of justice will be defeated by the absence of such witness at the time of trial; and that this discretion may be used more especially in capital or other cases of importance.

 

Done and passed in Council before His Excellency Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Anthony Bozon, commanding His Majesty’s Forces and administering the Civil Government, this first day of August in the second year of His Majesty’s reign, and in the year of our Lord 1831.