Witness Examination
Welcome to the Witness Examination page 2011!
The Witness Examination competition is a simulated civil or criminal trial. Teams consist of two students, one barrister and one non-com- petitive witness. As the barrister, you will act as either counsel for the defence or counsel for the prosecution and your task will be to ascertain the facts of the case through the examination and cross-examination of witnesses.
As a witness, you must memorize the facts of the case prior to trial and must testify in accordance with the facts. It is permissible to create facts that are not in the brief, but the facts created must always be consistent with the brief.
You are emailed your brief approximately 24 hours prior to the trial. It contains statements from both the Defendant and Witness for the Pros- ecution, relevant laws and written instructions from your client.
A detailed outline of the process involved in the Witness Examination Competition can be found on the following pages. Note that as a matter of court etiquette, an adjudicator sitting in the Magistrates’ Court should be referred to as “Your Honour” (as are all judges sitting in higher courts).
There will be a sample witness examination taking place in week 3 of this semester so keep your eyes on this space for more information should you be interested in attending.
Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact your witness examination officers, Michael Daffey and Nick McColl at lss-witness@unimelb.edu.au
Rules
For information on the rules of Witness Competition, here's something I prepared earlier; 2011 Witness Competition guidelines