ABSTRACT
Foreign Law is a matter of fact before English courts and has to be proved by appropriate evidence like any other fact in dispute. It is, however, a special sort of fact and the evidence can only be presented by witnesses who possess the requisite degree of expertise in foreign law. This evidence will be partly evidence of fact and partly evidence of opinion. These experts, like any others, will be subjected to the processes of examination-in-chief and crossexamination, and any authorities on which they rely are open to the scrutiny of the court. Generally, the witnesses will be judges or practitoners in the legal system which is being considered, but this is not mandatory.120 The nature of foreign law and the manner of proving it will be dealt with in detail at a later stage. However, at this juncture, it should be noted that for the purposes of English private international law, both Northern Ireland and Scotland are separate jurisdictions, so that their laws have to be proved before an English court in the same manner as the law of Italy, France or the USA. In cases where the House of Lords is sitting as the ultimate appellate tribunal on Scottish or Northern Ireland appeals,121 it does take judicial notice of the law of the relevant jurisdiction.
