Do you recall while watching drama or some TV shows where the lawyers breaks the witness in court by asking some question? Do you know that apart from the lawyer’s questionings skills, lawyers are restraint in the manner in asking the questions of his witness? Let us look into a few basic concepts with regards to examining the witness.
In court, there is 3 stages in examining the witness which is:
Examination in Chief (EIC)
Where the lawyer will ask their client’s witness.
Do take note that in EIC the lawyer is not allowed to ask leading question and is only allowed to ask opening ending questions. This is to prevent the lawyer from putting the answers into the witness and preventing the lawyers from fabricating the whole story. The opponent lawyer has to be alert to object the lawyers from doing so.
Cross Examine (CE)
After the lawyer finish in EIC, then the opponent lawyer is to Cross Examine (CE) the witness.
During CE, the opponent lawyer allows to ask leading question. This is to show that the witness is not credible and the statement is not to be taken into account by the court. However, do take note that the opponent lawyer is not allowed to ask irrelevant question.
Re-Examination (RE)
After CE, here comes RE where the lawyers are to re-examine their own witness in order to save their credibility from the CE. However, do take note that the lawyers are limited to the question asked during CE and is also restrained from asking leading question.
Leading and Opening Ending question…
Let us look into this example: where Today Mr. B eat Bread for Breakfast.
Leading Question: Do you agree with me that you ate bread for breakfast today?
Whereas
Opening Ending Question: Mr. B can I know what do you have for breakfast?
From the 2 types of question asked you can see that in leading question the answer is limited to 50/50 whereas in Opening Ending question the answer can be anything.
Therefore, it is crucial to ask the right question and it takes time to master questioning skills.
