CAP. 199 Kenya Defence Forces Kenya Defence Forces [Rev. 2012] (3) An oath or affirmation required to be made under this section shall be in the prescribed form and shall be administered at the prescribed time, by the prescribed person and in the prescribed manner. 169. Court-martial to sit in open court (1) Subject to this section, a court-martial shall sit in open court and in the presence of the accused. (2) A court-martial may sit in closed court if it considers it necessary or expedient in the interests of the administration of justice to do so, and without prejudice to that power a court-martial may order that, subject to any exceptions the court may specify, the public shall be excluded from all or any part of the proceedings of the court if it appears to the court that any evidence to be given or statement to be made in the course of the proceedings or that part, as the case may be, might otherwise lead to disclosure of any information which might directly or indirectly endanger security, to protect witnesses or vulnerable persons, morality and public order. (3) A court-martial shall sit in closed court while deliberating on its finding or sentence on any charge. (4) A court-martial may sit in closed court on any other deliberation amongst its members. (5) If a court-martial sits in closed court, any other person shall not be present except the members of the court and such other persons as may be prescribed. 170. Evidence (1) The rules as to the admissibility of evidence to be observed in proceedings before courts martial shall be the same as those observed in civil courts. (2) A person shall not be required in proceedings before a court-martial to answer any question or to produce any document which that person could not be required to answer or produce, as the case may be, in similar proceedings before a civil court. (3) Despite the provisions of section 25A of the Evidence Act (Cap. 80), confessions recorded before an officer not below the rank of major, other than the investigating officer, shall be admissible in a trial before a court-martial and such confessions shall be recorded in accordance with the Evidence (Out of Court Confessions) Rules, 2009. (4) A statutory declaration— (a) shall, in a trial by a court-martial, be admissible as evidence of the facts declared in it in a case where, and to the extent to which, oral evidence to similar effect would be admissible in that trial; (b) shall not be admitted in evidence in a trial by a court-martial on behalf of either the prosecution or the defence— (i) where the declaration is put forward on behalf of the prosecution, unless a copy of the declaration has, not less than seven days before the commencement of the trial, been delivered to the accused; [Issue 1] K7-80