I do appreciate, or at least did at one time like, a good farce, the type fashioned to offer light public entertainment in theatres and playhouses the world over. Ask Gilbert & Sullivan, Noel Coward, Frank Pilgrim or Ronald Hollingsworth. There is, however, one species with which I am closely associated in professional life that I am surely not prepared to endure as the porous old conscience can bear it no longer.
I refer to the great lie that appears, usually at the bottom left hand of every affidavit to the following effect – “Sworn to at Demerara, or Berbice or Essequibo before me – followed by the flourishing signature of the unworthy human ingredient of that legal untruth namely “Commissioner for Oaths to Affidavits” or worse “Notary Public”. And that’s exactly what generates my present nagging distaste – the LIE – since the majority of these documents are never sworn to at any time.
Without entering into some legal treatise on the origins of the oath – in Roman times the testicles played their solemn and significant part – I think we may all agree that it is the actual swearing of oaths for legal purposes that imparts credibility to the word of the signatory (the deponent) to an affidavit and furthermore the involvement of the holy book of one’s religion that operates as the very foundation of the legal presumption that the foregoing text of the sworn document represents the solemn truth.
Well, it is with deep regret that I must claim that the majority of affidavits which abound in the legal market place are not sworn either by the holding of that religious text or raising the hand as an affirmation of the truth. May I insert my personal confession that as a public notary of many years vintage I possess no copy of the Bhagavad Gita nor of the Koran and that the one Christian Bible in my Chambers is reserved for the more salutary spiritual usage.
But it is with even deeper regret that I moan the shameful fact that a significant number of the deponents never appear before the Commissioner for Oaths at all. The well known fact is that the maker of the affidavit would sign the document at the lawyer’s Chambers or commercial bank and go his or her merry way. At the end of the day an itinerant Commissioner would pass in and “sign up” such affidavits as may have been signed at those chambers and in the state of universal acceptance falsely certify that the document was sworn to by the deponent in his/her presence. A ruddy legal farce if these ever was one!
I harbour an abiding fear that one day some unsporting lawyer cross-examining a deponent at Court may elicit the reply that the actual swearing did not occur and would triumphantly impugn the validity of the document with the good true Judge, though cognizant of the accepted farcical process, being forced to concede success to unsporting counsel.
Well at the very least we can be sure that each one of more than 12,000 Bills of Sale per year plus a few thousand other items are supported by affidavits which are unsworn. The more compelling lie resides in the fact that in the majority of these cases the proponent and the Commissioner for Oaths never meet.
I have little doubt that the legal authorities, the Minister of Legal Affairs, the Courts, Registrar, Bar Association and Senior legal practitioners are all aware of the farce and are prepared to accept the status quo.
But I am disquieted; I don’t like it, it is too serious an aspect of our legal business to foster such blatant falsity, and pretend that it does not matter. Eliminate the oath, :it’s time to remove the lie. Remove the disrespect for the holy books. Say thanks and good-bye to the Commis-sioner; Remove the requirement that he lie. Let the signature of the deponent suffice to bind him to his word. End the farce!
Yours faithfully,
Leon O. Rockcliffe
Attorney-at-Law
