Article 133: Summoning and questioning witnesses

Décisions de la Cour suprême interprétant cette section

1. Arrêt de la Cour suprême n° 1172/2566 (2023)

   Questioning a person as a witness under Section 133 is distinct from charging; where a person is questioned only as a witness and not summoned to be charged as a juristic person's representative, no charge notification is required.

   The Court distinguished witness questioning under Section 133 from the charge procedure. Because a certain person was questioned only as a witness and not summoned to be charged as a representative of a juristic person, the special investigation officers were not required to notify him of any charge.

2. Arrêt de la Cour suprême n° 2185/2558 (2015)

   Section 133 paragraph one empowers the inquiry official to summon the injured person, or anyone whose statement there is reason to believe may be of use to the case, to attend at the time and place stated in the summons. Questioning may therefore be conducted at any place and need not take place at a police station, so the location alone does not make an investigation unlawful. The paragraph imposes no separate requirement that the record be shown to be a statement the witness in fact gave; a challenge on that ground raises a question of evidence for the court to weigh, not a defect in the investigation.

   The defendant argued on final appeal that the investigation was unlawful because the inquiry official had not questioned witnesses at the police station, because typed statements had been taken to some witnesses at home for signature, and because some witnesses did not know what the document said or had signed blank paper. The Supreme Court held that section 133 paragraph one allows questioning at any time and place stated in the summons, so questioning away from the police station did not make the investigation unlawful. On the factual challenge it accepted the investigating officer's evidence that he had never had anyone else obtain a witness signature outside his presence, and that he had questioned some witnesses at their homes, and it treated the witnesses' discrepancies as no more than differences of recollection. The investigation was accordingly lawful.

3. Arrêt de la Cour suprême n° 84/2499 (1956)

   Inducing a witness to reverse a truthful statement and shift the blame is contrary to the proper method of investigation under Section 133, which forbids tricks that interfere with willing testimony.

   A prosecution witness, after being prompted, changed an earlier account and shifted the acts he had admitted onto the accused. The Court treated this as inconsistent with the lawful method of investigation under Section 133, which bars discouraging or tricking a witness out of a willing statement.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.