The main question was whether the accused was guilty of the offence charged; this had to be formulated according to the facts and the law as contained in the indictment, or failing that, in the indictment or the indictment as amended at the main trial.11 Finkey specifically stated that “the question of fact, the question of law, the question of commission and the question of guilt or imputation must be merged into the main question, i.e. there must be no separate question as to whether the accused committed the act”. The main question therefore had to cover both the act as described in the indictment and its legal classification.12 If, as a result of the evidence, the accused could be guilty of an offence other than that contained in the indictment, a separate question had to be asked. In the latter case, however, separate questions could only be asked with the consent of the accused, and if the accused did not consent, the procedures had to be separated.

So-called subsidiary questions are – usually – included in a separate question. Such side questions included:

if the jury found the defendant not guilty or answered yes to the question whether there was no excuse, the defendant was acquitted;

in the case of a conviction, the accused made a motion for sentence, followed by a statement of the victim’s private claim; the accused and his defence counsel were then allowed to speak once, but not to criticise the jury’s verdict; only then could the court retire to deliberate on the verdict and the verdict had to be delivered without interrupting the proceedings and then announced immediately. 21

The question of fact was whether it was true that the accused had committed the act on which the charge was based: the question had to be formulated by listing all the factual circumstances which

The question of law was whether this act constituted the offence charged in the indictment; therefore, the elements of the offence set out in the applicable law had to be listed verbatim in these questions.27