Working Guide to the Evidence Act

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Anton Hughes

Practical tip: objections

Long ago, I took a tip from civil practitioners in the Equity Division of the Supreme Court. They do all their evidence in chief by affidavit, and it is therefore common practice to file and serve a list of objections before the hearing. But there is no reason for not

Admissibility

I said earlier in this paper that I didn’t think that the flowchart in Chapter 3 quite captured the structure of the admissibility provisions. Really, my complaint is that it doesn’t quite show how important relevance is as a starting point. It is good practice, for every matter,

Adducing evidence

Where does evidence come from? There are 2 sources of evidence: * Witnesses * Documents Each source has its own unique advantages and disadvantages. So each have their own unique considerations, which I will deal with in turn. Witnesses To be able to take the affirmation or oath, and start answering questions,

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction On one level, this is a strange issue to have to deal with up front, given that we are talking about the Uniform Evidence Acts. But as you might expect, given that the task of implementing this uniform regime fell to a number of different parliaments, who all think

A Working Guide to the Evidence Act(s)?

A Working Guide to the Evidence Act(s)?

Let's begin by stating what this is, and what it isn't. It is not a treatise on evidence law. It is not the definitive word on Evidence Law. The High Court has reserved that honour to itself. If you want a "mostly" definitive guide,

Structure of the Act

Structure of the Act

There is an underlying structure to the Act. It’s partially represented in the flowchart in Chapter 3 of the Act. But that flowchart has 2 problems, for present purposes. One is it only covers part of the Act. Secondly, it doesn’t really capture (for me at least), the