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Commissioners shall be appointed by masters, on reference from the court, to examine witnesses.
Their oath.
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43. [Recital.] In all cases where it may be necessary that an examination of witnesses should take place, either in chief in any cause, or in aid of any inquiry or account ordered or directed to be made or taken before any master in ordinary of the said court, other than the examinations of witnesses before the examinators of the said court, an order shall be made by such court for referring it to a master in ordinary of the said court, according to the usual practice of the said court in such case, to approve of and appoint one fit and proper person to act as examiner in all such cases so referred; and such person so to be approved of and appointed by such master shall, so far as the same is practicable, be totally unconnected with either or any of the parties interested in such cause; and such person so approved of and appointed shall be and shall be taken as and shall be considered to be an officer of the said Court of Chancery, and shall be subject to such summary interference and controul of the said court, as any other officer of the said court in this Act particularly mentioned; and a commission shall issue to such person so as aforesaid appointed, authorizing and empowering him to proceed in the examination of all such witnesses as may be necessary, in the same manner and according to the same forms as are at present established (save and except in cases where such established practice is altered by this Act) touching and concerning the examination of witnesses under commission to examine witnesses issuing out of the Court of Chancery in Ireland at any time before the commencement of this Act; and every person so approved of and appointed a commissioner to examine witnesses under the provisions of this Act, before he shall exercise any of the duties of such commissioner, shall take and subscribe before a master in ordinary or a master extraordinary of the said court the following oath, and such oath shall be annexed to the said commission, and shall be returned with the said commission to the said court, to be there filed and recorded; (that is to say,)
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‘I A.B. do swear, that I will, according to the best of my skill and knowledge, truly and faithfully perform the duty of a commissioner to examine witnesses pursuant to the powers vested in me by the annexed commission; and that I will truly, faithfully, and without partiality to any or either of the parties in this cause, take, write down the examinations and depositions of all and every witness and witnesses who shall be produced before and examined by me, upon the interrogatories filed for that purpose; and that until publication in the said cause shall duly pass, I will not publish, disclose, or make known any part of the purport or contents of any deposition of any witness to be taken by me; and further, that I will fairly and truly enter and set down in writing, in the dominical of such examination, the hours of the day on each day that I shall be employed as such commissioner, at which I shall respectively commence and conclude the examination of the witnesses under such commission, as also the real and true cause or causes of my not commencing such examination at or before eleven of the clock in the forenoon, if such should be the case, and also, of my not continuing such examination till three o’clock in the afternoon, if such should be the case, as also, by whose delay or default, so far as I can judge, such examination was not commenced and continued [as the case may be] from eleven o’clock in the forenoon till three in the afternoon.
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