Queensland Consolidated Acts

CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT ACT 1892 - SECT 4

4 If prisoner does not require witnesses to attend, their depositions may be put in at trial with any exhibits attached

(1) When a person charged with an indictable offence other than treason or murder is committed for trial, the justice or justices by whom the person is committed shall, when the depositions of the witnesses are read over to the person, ask the person after the reading of the deposition of each witness whose evidence is in the opinion of the justice or justices of a formal character, whether the person wishes that witness to be produced at the person’s trial or whether he or she will be content that the deposition as taken and read to the person shall be produced and admitted as evidence at the trial together with the exhibits (if any) annexed.

(2) If the accused person states that the accused person does not require the production of such witness at his or her trial the accused person shall sign a statement to that effect in the form in the schedule, and the signature shall be attested by the committing justice or justices, and in any such case the Crown shall not be required to produce the witness at the trial of the accused person, but may tender as evidence at the trial the deposition of the witness with any exhibits annexed thereto and the statement signed by the accused and attested by the committing justice or justices, and thereupon the deposition with the exhibits annexed shall be received as evidence at the trial.