Title IX: Of Interrogations To Be Made to the Parties in Judgment

§ 1. To elicit the truth of a fact which it is publicly of interest be placed beyond doubt, the judge must interrogate the parties.

§ 2. In other cases he can interrogate one of the contestants not only at the instance of the other party, but also from office, whenever there is question of illustrating a proof brought forward.

§ 3. Interrogation of the parties can be made by the judge at any stage of the judgment before conclusion in the cause; after conclusion in the cause the prescription of can. 1861 is to be observed.

§ 1. The parties are bound to respond to the judge legitimately interrogating them and to confess the truth, unless there is question of a delict committed by themselves.

§ 2. If a party legitimately interrogated refuses to respond, it belongs to the judge to estimate how much this refusal is to be valued, whether it is just or to be equated with confession or not.

§ 3. A party who must respond, if he has illegitimately refused to respond or if after he has responded he is found mendacious, is to be punished, for a time to be defined by the judge according to the circumstances of things, by removal from legitimate ecclesiastical acts; and if before the response he had rendered an oath concerning telling the truth, a lay person is to be punished by personal interdict, a cleric by suspension.

The judge cannot defer an oath concerning telling the truth to the accused in criminal causes; in contentious causes, whenever the public good is involved in the cause, he must exact it from the parties; in other causes, he can exact it according to his prudence.

§ 1. Both actor and defendant mutually, and also the promoter of justice and defender of the bond, can exhibit to the judge articles, or questions, concerning which the party is to be interrogated, and which are commonly called positions.

§ 2. In drafting, admitting, and proposing positions to the party, the rules established in can. 1773-1781 are to be observed proportionally.

For rendering an oath or responding to interrogations, the parties must present themselves personally before the judge, except those of whom in can. 1770, Sec. 2, nn. 1, 2.