[ Act No. 1130, April 28, 1904 ]

AN ACT TO PREVENT THE FAILURE OF MILITARY JUSTICE.

By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION 1. Every person not belonging to the Army of the United States, who, in the Philippine Islands, being duly subpoenaed to appear therein as a witness before a general court-martial of said Army, willfully neglects or refuses to appear, or refuses to qualify as a witness or to testify or produce documentary evidence which such person may have been legally subpoenaed to produce, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, United States currency, or imprisonment not to exceed six months, or both, at the discretion of the court, and it shall be the duty of the proper fiscal or prosecuting officer, on the certification  of the facts to him by the general court-martial, to file in the proper court a complaint against and prosecute the person so offending: Provided, That one dollar and fifty cents, United States currency, for each day's attendance, and five cents, United States currency, per mile for going from his place of residence to the place of trial or hearing and five cents per mile for returning, shall be duly tendered to said witness: Provided further, That no witness shall be compelled to incriminate himself or to answer any question which may tend to incriminate him.

SEC. 2. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section two of "An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws," passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.

SEC. 3. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, April 28, 1904.