This Act shall apply to all judicial proceedings in or before the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and all courts established under the Magistrates Courts Act, but not to affidavits presented to any court or officer nor to proceedings before an arbitrator.

(1)In this Act, the following words and expressions are used in the following senses, unless a contrary intention appears from the context—

"court" includes all judges, magistrates, jurors and assessors and all persons, except arbitrators, legally authorised to take evidence;

"currency point" has the value assigned to it in the Schedule to this Act;

"document" means any matter expressed or described upon any substance by means of letters, figures or marks, or by more than one of those means, intended to be used, or which may be used, for the purpose of recording that matter;

"documentary evidence" means all documents produced for the inspection of the court;

"evidence" denotes the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, is proved or disproved and includes statements by accused persons, admissions, judicial notice, presumptions of law, and ocular observation by the court in its judicial capacity;

"fact" means and includes—

"fact in issue" means and includes any fact from which, either by itself or in connection with other facts, the existence, non-existence, nature or extent of any right, liability or disability, asserted or denied in any suit or proceeding, necessarily follows; Explanation."Whenever, under the provisions of the law for the time being in force relating to civil procedure, any court records an issue of fact, the fact to be asserted or denied in the answer to that issue is a fact in issue.

"monogamous marriage" means a marriage which is by law necessarily monogamous and binding during the lifetime of both parties unless dissolved by a valid judgment of a court;

"oral evidence" means all statements which the court permits or requires to be made before it by witnesses, in relation to matters of fact under inquiry.

(2)One fact is said to be relevant to another when the one is connected with the other in any of the ways referred to in the provisions of this Act relating to the relevancy of facts.

(3)A fact is said to be proved when, after considering the matters before it, the court either believes it to exist, or considers its existence so probable that a prudent man ought, in the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it exists.

(4)A fact is said to be disproved when, after considering the matters before it, the court either believes that it does not exist, or considers its non-­existence so probable that a prudent man ought, in the circumstances of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it does not exist.

(5)A fact is said not to be proved when it is neither proved nor disproved.

(1)Whenever it is provided by this Act that the court may presume a fact, it may either regard that fact as proved, unless it is disproved, or may call for proof of it.

(2)Whenever it is directed by this Act that the court shall presume a fact, it shall regard that fact as proved, unless it is disproved.

(3)When one fact is declared by this Act to be conclusive proof of another, the court shall, on proof of the one fact, regard the other as proved, and shall not allow evidence to be given for the purpose of disproving it.

Subject to any other law, evidence may be given in any suit or proceeding of the existence or non-existence of every fact in issue, and of such other facts as are hereafter declared to be relevant, and of no others.

Facts which, though not in issue, are so connected with a fact in issue as to form part of the same transaction are relevant, whether they occurred at the same time and place or at different times and places.