Chapter II: Of Witnesses and Attestations

Proof by witnesses is admitted in any causes whatsoever, yet under the moderation of the judge, according to the manner defined beforehand in the canons which follow.

§ 1. Witnesses must respond to the judge legitimately interrogating them and confess the truth.

§ 2. With the prescription of can. 1757, Sec. 3, n. 2 saved, the following are exempted from this obligation:

1° Pastors and other priests as regards those things which have been manifested to them by reason of the sacred ministry outside sacramental confession; magistrates of states, physicians, midwives, advocates, notaries, and others who are bound to official secrecy even by reason of counsel given, as regards business subject to this secrecy.

2° Those who from their own testimony fear that infamy, dangerous vexations, or other very grave evils will come to themselves or to blood relatives or affines in any degree of the direct line and in the first degree of the collateral line.

§ 3. Witnesses who knowingly affirm what is false or conceal what is true to the judge legitimately interrogating them are to be punished according to the norm of can. 1743, Sec. 3; and all who have presumed by gifts, promises, or any other way to induce a witness or expert to give false testimony or to conceal the truth are to be punished with the same penalty.