Judge: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Me: Fuck. Here, I swore.
Ok, serious question: what is the course here? Can you be forced to swear?
But what if you don’t want to testify in the first place?
In Germany you’re forced to testify anyways.
Just curious but how could you be forced to testify?
Do you mean you are forced to come to the stand and in court ?
Generally speaking, you will be asked to swear or affirm that you are going to tell the truth, and that you understand the consequences of not telling the truth. Whether you do a whole ceremony about it or not, it doesn’t really matter – but the court will want to know that you are competent to testify truthfully and that you know that you’re not allowed to testify to things you know aren’t true.
If you’re asking “can you be forced to testify?”, the answer is “Yes but it depends.” If you’re competent to testify and the officers of the court deem your testimony important, they can subpoena your testimony. If you have a reason to contest it, you can – but “I don’t want to” isn’t good enough.
If this happens they’ll do the “A person who swears to tell the truth and nothing but the truth says what” ordeal. If that doesn’t work they will just let you leave
“Anything you say can be used against you in court.”
“Titties.”
“…”
