- Objection, your honour!
Today, I’ve made my first court appearance, under oath and everything. One morning in August 2002, I was in the bus as usual on the way to the office when we had an accident due to other people’s bad driving. Now, two and a half years later, there is still an unsettled insurance claim regarding this - and so they called in the people brave enough to hand in a written eye-witness report at the time.
The whole thing was very undramatic; it was a small room with the judge and his bailiff behind one desk, me and the interpreter facing them, with the two attorneys on either side in their slightly silly black frocks with white fringe ties - to be honest I am not even sure who was the prosecution and who was the defense, but who cares? A decanter of water and a few plastic cups on each table, and four rows of chairs for spectators in the back of the room. No-one sat there.
After a short introduction, I had to give the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God - but it’s not at all like in the movies. You are actually even given a choice in this multicultural country, if you want to swear on the Bible or not. Since I am not a very religious person, I decided not to, so all I had to do was to say “Dat beloof ik.” ("That, I promise.") and that was it. I was then told the legal difference between the responses “No.", “I don’t think so.” and “I can’t remember.” to questions like “Do you remember if he then hit the other guy” - if you don’t remember for sure, you must always answer explicitly; “I can’t remember".
Then I had to recount what had happened that chilly August morning, where and when it was. I drew a sketch of the situation and explained how I remembered it, and the judge asked questions while taking notes. Then the attorney that had called me as a witness asked a few questions, and after him it was the other guy’s turn. No wild cross-examination or badgering of the witness here, everything was very civilized (apart possibly from those ties).
We were asked to step out for 20 minutes while the judge and the bailiff prepared a written version of the statement to file with the case. Outside the room, we met the bus driver who was also called as a witness, and due to testify directly after I was done. It was nice to see her again - the incident doesn’t seem to have affected her at all, but I guess she’s used to it. She told us that she drives all over Europe, and that she sees the same kind of situations everywhere.
After a short while, we got to enter the room again, and I got to read through my statement - or rather, the interpreter translated it for me. (Probably that wouldn’t have been necessary, but I’d rather follow the letter of the law.) The few minor adjustments I had (just clarifications) were added; I signed the statement and the sketch I’d done earlier and that was it. We all shook hands and it was back to normal life again, one experience richer.
And the judge didn’t even have a gavel or a name sign on his desk. Pah.
