Legal Alert: Do not take witness statements lightly!

Significant changes came into force on 6 April 2020 within the Practice Direction Amendments, including Practice Direction 22. 

These changes will affect anyone who signs or drafts documents that consist of statements of truth. 

The modifications to Practice Direction 22 include different technical legal phrasing used to confirm the truth of the content of documents in a lawsuit called statements of truth.

The technical legal jargon is to verify written evidence, a response, an application notice or notice. 

 Two new provisions under this practice include that the statement of truth must be in the witness’s language (Practice Direction 22 - 2.4) and that it must be dated when it was signed (Practice Direction 22 - 2.5).

The second rule above seems unnecessary since a signature date should always be the date that the signatory signed the document except for exceptional circumstances when a signature can be dated retrospectively.

The alterations remove ambiguity by clearly emphasising that there will be severe consequences if you lie or otherwise mislead the court. The results of telling porkies include contempt of court proceedings and possibly jail.

Therefore, if you are signing court documents:

First make sure you know that the rules have changed, so you get the right phrasing. 

Second, make sure you do not try to pull the wool over the eyes of the court.

To learn about all the changes, please check out the following links:

PRACTICE DIRECTION 22 – STATEMENTS OF TRUTH - Civil Procedure Rules

MORE RULE CHANGES IN APRIL: CHANGES TO THE STATEMENT OF TRUTH: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

To obtain an accurate, personal opinion about your legal dispute please contact us on (020) 7305-7491 or at support@pailsolicitors.co.uk we would be delighted to assist you. The writer is an intern member of the intellectual property and information technology support team at  PAIL® Solicitors.