CHAPTER XIX.

JUDICIAL NOTICE AND THE PROOF OF FOREIGN LAWS.

THE courts take judicial notice of numerous facts, which it is therefore unnecessary to prove.

They notice all the public statutes of the realm (a); their own course of procedure and practice (b); the maritime law of nations (c); and a war in which the country is engaged, but not a war between foreign countries (d); the great and privy seals (e); royal proclamations; the preamble of an act (ƒ); and now, by the Documentary Evidence Act, 1845 (g), s. 3, all copies of royal proclamations, purporting to be printed by the Queen's printer, are made evidence thereof in all courts, without proof being given that such copies were so printed. By the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868 (h), this principle was extended to orders or regulations in council, and to proclama

(a) Bull. N. P. 222.

(b) Pugh v. Robinson, 1 T. R. 116.

(e) Chandler v. Grieves, 2 H. Bl. 606, n.
(d) Dolder v. Huntingfield, 11 Ves. 292.
(e) 29 How. St. Tr. 707.

(f) R. v. Sutton, 4 M. & S. 532.

(g) 8 & 9 Vict. c. 113.

(h) 31 & 32 Vict. c. 37.

tions, orders and regulations issued by any of the government departments or officers specified in the act. This act provides that prima facie evidence of any such proclamation, order or regulation may be given in any of the modes specified in the act (k). The Documentary Evidence Act, 1882 (7), provides (s. 2) that "where any enactment, whether passed before or after the passing of this act, provides that a copy of any act of parliament, proclamation, order, regulation, rule, warrant, circular, list, gazette or document shall be conclusive evidence, or be evidence, or have any other effect, when purporting to be printed by the government printer or the Queen's printer, or a printer authorized by her Majesty, or otherwise under her Majesty's authority, whatever may be the precise expression used, such copy shall also be conclusive evidence, or evidence, or have the said effect (as the case may be), if it purports to be printed under the superintendence or authority of her Majesty's Stationery Office." This act also provides (s. 4) that "The Documentary Evidence Act, 1868, as amended by this act, shall apply to proclamations, orders, and regulations issued by the Lord Lieutenant or other chief governor or governors of Ireland, either alone or acting with the advice of the privy council in Ireland, as fully as it applies to proclamations, orders and regulations issued by her Majesty."

By the Documentary Evidence Act, 1845 (s. 1),

(k) See Huggins v. Ward, 21 W. R. 914.

(7) 45 & 46 Vict. c. 9.

in

it is enacted that, whenever by any act then in force or thereafter to be in force, " any certificate, official or public document, or document or proceeding of any corporation or joint-stock or other company, or any certified copy of any document, bye-law, entry any register or other book, or of any other proceeding, shall be receivable in evidence of any particular in any court of justice, or before any legal tribunal, or either house of parliament, or any committee of either house, or in any judicial proceeding; the same shall be respectively admitted in evidence, provided they respectively purport to be sealed or impressed with a stamp, or sealed and signed, or signed alone, as required, or impressed with a stamp and signed, as directed by the respective acts made or to be hereafter made, without any proof of the seal or stamp where a seal or stamp is necessary; or of the signature, or of the official character, of the person appearing to have signed the same, and without any further proof thereof in every case in which the original record could have been received in evidence." And also (sect. 2), "that all courts, judges, justices, masters in Chancery, masters of courts, commissioners judicially acting, and other judicial officers, shall henceforth take judicial notice of the signature of any of the equity or common law judges of the superior courts at Westminster, provided such signature be attached or appended to any decree, order, certificate or other judicial or official document."

By 14 & 15 Vict. c. 49, s. 10, judicial notice is to be taken in England and Wales of documents ad

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missible in evidence of any particular in any court of justice in Ireland.

By 18 & 19 Vict. c. 42, s. 3, "any document purporting to have affixed, impressed or subscribed thereon or thereto the seal and signature of any British ambassador, envoy, minister, chargé d'affaires, secretary of embassy or of legation, consul-general, consul, vice-consul, acting consul, pro-consul or consular agent, in testimony of any such oath, affidavit, affirmation or act having been administered, sworn, affirmed, had or done by or before him, shall be admitted in evidence without proof of any such seal and signature being the seal and signature of the person whose seal and signature the same purports to be, or of the official character of such person.'

The Companies Act, 1862 (7), provides by sect. 125, that in all proceedings under that act, judicial notice shall be taken of the signature of any officer of the Courts of Chancery or Bankruptcy in England, or in Ireland, or of the Court of Session in Scotland, or of the registrar of the Court of the Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, and also of the official seal or stamp of the several officers of such courts respectively.

By the 61st section of the Judicature Act, 1873 (m), judicial notice is to be taken of the seals of district registries, and by sect. 84 of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, 1883 (n), impressions of the seal of

(7) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 89. (m) 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66. (2) 46 & 47 Vict. c. 57.

the Patent Office are to be judicially noticed and admitted in evidence.

By the 15 & 16 Vict. c. 86, s. 22, it is provided that judicial notice shall be taken of, among other things, the seal or signature of a notary public attached to affidavits and other documents in Scotland, Ireland, the Channel Islands, or any colony, island, plantation or place under the dominion of her Majesty in foreign parts. This section has been held to include all documents to be used in court (0), and not to have been abrogated with regard to affidavits by Ord. 38, Rule 6, of the R. S. C., 1883 (p). Where an affidavit is sworn before a foreign notary, the signature of such notary requires verification, and the Court of Chancery has refused to take judicial notice of the seal of such a notary (2).

In Cole v. Sherrard (r), the Court of Exchequer took judicial notice of the seal of a notary public in the Channel Islands, independently of any statutory provision. It appears on the whole to be the rule that the seal of a notary public in any part of her Majesty's dominions will be judicially noticed, but not the seal of a foreign notary public. It may be remarked that the certificate of a notary public of a protest abroad of a foreign bill of exchange is evidence of that fact, but neither notarial or consular certifi

(0) Brooke v. Brooke, L. R., 17 Ch. D. 833; 50 L. J., Ch. 528; 30 W. R. 45.

(p) Cooke v. Wilby, L. R., 25 Ch. D. 769; 53 L. J., Ch. 592; 32 W. R. 379.

(9) In re Earl's Trust, 4 K. & J. 300.

(r) 11 Exch. 482.