LEGAL PRINCIPLE: EVIDENCE LAW — Affidavit Evidence — Requirement that Affidavit Contain Only Facts and Circumstances, Not Conclusions or Inferences

"In any affidavit used in court, it is required that it shall contain only a statement of facts and circumstances derived from the personal knowledge of the deponent or from information which he believes to be true. This is provided in sections 86 and 87 of the Evidence Act. The test for knowing facts and circumstances is to examine each of the paragraphs deposed to in the affidavit. If it is such that a witness may be entitled to adduce them in his testimony on oath and are legally admissible as evidence to prove or disprove a fact in issue or dispute, then they qualify as statements of fact or of circumstances. This means that affidavit evidence, like oral evidence, must as a general rule deal with facts and avoid matters of inference or conclusion which fall within the province of the court; or objection, prayer or legal argument which must be left to counsel. If, therefore, affidavit evidence is in the form of conclusion, inference, legal argument, prayer or objection, it raises no fact which needs to be controverted but is simply regarded as extraneous to the determination of factual disputes."