The Relevant Rules Of Evidence To Criminal Litigation By Evans Ufeli Esq.

Evidence is perhaps the most important doctrine in the pursuit of the legal profession. It is from the rules of evidence that the court sees through the cases before her in the dispensation and adjudication of justice. In other words, the court sees clearer from the strength or weaknesses of the evidence before her in the process of litigation before decisions are reached and such decisions are firmly based on the said evidence.

I wish to state that my focus in this article will only revolve around the rules of evidence that relates to criminal litigation. Lets start this with proof of fact. The rule in law is that any fact in issue or facts that are relevant to some other facts which are relevant to the fact in issue must be established or prove in court by means of evidence. In other words, the court of law only admits evidence that constitutes a fact in issue or evidence that are relevant to the fact in issue and/or evidence not directly relevant to the fact in issue but are relevant to the relevant facts.

For example in a charge of murder, the fact in issue is whether or not the accused murdered the deceased. The fact that someone saw the accused when he murdered the deceased and the fact that the deceased still had with him the machete which he used to commit the offence and the fact that the accused cannot explain what he was doing with a machete with blood stains beside the deceased who was on the pool of his own blood are all facts relevant to the fact in issue. The facts in the above illustration must be prove by means of evidence before a trial court can believe and act on them.

There are however exceptions to the general rule wherein proof will not be necessary for the trial court to act on certain facts that are relevant to the fact in issue. These facts are regarded as facts that need not be proved. The said facts are facts judicially notice, facts admitted, facts presumed and facts for which proof is not allowed. For fact judicially noticed, it means fact for which the court must take judicial notice of for which this requires no proof. In the case of SARAKI VS. KOTOYE (1990) 4 NWLR ( pt. 143) 144 at 195 the court defined judicial notice as

” The cognisance taken by the court itself in certain matters which are so notorious or clearly established that evidence of their existence is deemed unnecessary; that is facts which need not be proved or facts otherwise by evidence.”

So where a court has taken judicial notice of a fact it need no extra proof before the court. It must however be stated that the court is not under any obligation to take judicial notice of all facts which it is expected to act upon. It is critical to note that in some facts it is compulsory for the court to take judicial notice but in other fact the court may use her discreation to either take judicial notice of them without further proof or by means of evidence before they could be relied upon.

To be continued…