(2) An accused person may elect to give his evidence from, or to be questioned in, the dock or the witness box or other place from which the other witnesses give their evidence or, with the consent of the judge or magistrate, any other place in the court room. D. Oaths and affirmations 249 Oaths (1) It shall not be lawful to examine as a witness any person other than a person described in section two hundred and fifty or two hundred and fifty-one except upon oath. (2) The oath to be administered to any person as a witness shall be administered in the form which most clearly conveys to him the meaning of the oath, and which he considers to be binding on his conscience. 250 Affirmations in lieu of oaths (1) In any case where any person who is or may be required to take an oath objects to do so, it shall be lawful for such person to make an affirmation in the words following:— “I do truly affirm and declare that” (here state the matter to be affirmed or declared). (2) An affirmation or declaration made in terms of subsection (1) shall be of the same effect as if the person making it had taken an oath. (3) Every person authorized, required or qualified by law to take or administer an oath shall accept in lieu thereof an affirmation or declaration made in terms of this section. (4) The same penalties, punishments and disabilities which are respectively in force and are attached to any refusal or false or corrupt taking or subscribing of any oath administered in accordance with section two hundred and forty-nine shall apply and attach in like manner in respect of the refusal or false or corrupt making or subscribing respectively of any such affirmation or declaration as in this section mentioned. 251 When unsworn or unaffirmed testimony admissible Any person produced for the purpose of giving evidence who, from ignorance arising from youth, defective education or other cause, is found not to understand the nature or to recognize the religious obligation of an oath or affirmation may be admitted to give evidence in any court without being sworn or being upon oath or affirmation: Provided that— (i) before any such person proceeds to give evidence, the judge or magistrate before whom he is called as a witness shall admonish him to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and shall further administer or cause to be administered to him any form of admonition which appears, either from his own statement or from any other source of information, to be calculated to impress his mind and bind his conscience, and which is not, as being of an inhuman, immoral or irreligious nature, obviously unfit to be administered; (ii) any such person who wilfully and falsely states anything which, if sworn, would have amounted to perjury or any offence declared by any enactment to be equivalent to perjury or punishable as perjury, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level seven or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or to both such fine and such imprisonment. [Section amended by section 4 of Act 22 of 2001 and by section 28 of Act 9 of 2006.] E. Admissibility of evidence 252 Inadmissibility of irrelevant evidence No evidence as to any fact, matter or thing shall be admissible which is irrelevant or immaterial and cannot conduce to prove or disprove any point or fact at issue in the case which is being tried. 253 Hearsay evidence (1) No evidence which is of the nature of hearsay evidence shall be admissible in any case in which such evidence would be inadmissible in any similar case depending in the Supreme Court of Judicature in England. (2) When evidence of a statement, oral or written, made in the ordinary course of duty, contemporaneously with the facts stated and without motive to misrepresent, would be admissible in the Supreme Court of Judicature in England if the person who made the statement were dead, such evidence shall be admissible in any criminal proceedings if the person who made the statement is dead or unfit by reason of his bodily or mental condition to attend as a witness or cannot with reasonable diligence be identified or found or brought before the court. [Subsection amended by section 28 of Act 9 of 2006.] (3) The court may, in deciding whether or not the person in question— (a) is unfit to attend as a witness, act on a certificate purporting to be a certificate of a medical practitioner; (b) is dead or cannot with reasonable diligence be identified or found or brought before the court, act on evidence submitted by way of affidavit.