Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 11).djvu/50

Audiencia and Chancillería of the Philipinas Islands declared that, whereas, conformably to the royal ordinances, all the evidences in suits and cases pending in this royal Audiencia, are committed to the clerk of court; and whereas, on account of the volume of business incumbent upon his said office, he cannot receive them all, and commits them to the notaries: therefore, because the aforesaid taking of evidence cannot be done unless authorized by this royal Audiencia, under the direction of its members, they ordered, and they did so order, that in regard to evidence which the said clerk of court cannot take immediately in interrogatories and petitions, by virtue of which such evidence must be taken, an act be passed by which his duty may be committed by this royal Audiencia and assigned by its members to a commissioner of examinations, the latter to receive and examine the said evidence, and to take the oaths of witnesses thereto. The said commissioner shall give a receipt to the parties for the fees which he shall collect from them for said evidence, and at the foot of the evidence he shall in like manner sign his name. The clerk of court shall not receive any fees for such evidence; and under no circumstances whatever shall the said evidence be taken in any other way, except as herein stated, under penalty that evidence given in any other way shall be null and void; and the commissioner receiving it shall incur a penalty of one hundred pesos of common gold, as soon as he shall have been judged guilty, the fine to be applied in equal parts to the royal treasury and court-rooms of this royal Audiencia. By this act they so declared, ordered, and decreed.

Before me: PEDRO HURTADO DESQUIBEL