“Corroboration is a creature of statutes” Discuss.

In most cases, the basic reason why courts and the law require corroboration is to ensure reliability of the
evidence that has been given. Because in certain situations, courts feels cautious about using certain
pieces of evidence for example where some of the witnesses are interested parties like the accomplices
and the co-accused. There are some offences where it is rare to have a direct witness apart from the
complainant for instance in sexual offences, most times the only witness is the victim and at trial, it
becomes the complainant’s word against the accused’s. Thus court needs corroboration to test the
reliability of that evidence.

Section 133 of the evidence act provides that subject to any other law in force, no particular number of
witnesses shall in any case be required for the proof of any fact. However, this very provision creates
exceptions in the sense that it is subject to any other law in force. The requirement for corroboration is an
exception to the general rule because it permits more witnesses.

This discussion will examine the meaning of corroboration, the situations where the courts will require
corroboration as a matter of law (statutes) and then discuss other situations in which the court may require
corroboration as a matter of judicial practice or prudence.

The word corroboration originated from the Latin word “corrōborāre” which means to strengthen or confirm.
It connotes support or confirmation, and indicates, in relation to the law of evidence, that certain evidence is
confirmed in its tenor and effect by other admissible and independent evidence. In other word corroboration
is confirmation or support of a claim or evidence through independent, authoritative, and credible evidence.
Therefore, corroboration evidence is tending to confirm some fact of which other evidence is given. To be
capable of amounting to corroboration evidence must not only be relevant and admissible but also credible
and independent. In Uganda vs. George Wilson Simbwa 1it was held that:

“Corroboration affects the accused by connecting or tending to connect him with the crime. In other words it
must be evidence which implicates him, which confirms in some material particular not only the evidence
that the crime has been committed but also that the defendant committed it. The test applicable to
determine the nature and extent of corroboration is the same whether it falls within the rule of practice at
common law or within the class of offences for which corroboration is required.”2

1
(SC) Criminal Appeal No 37 of 1995.
2
ibid.
As seen from the above holding, it was stated in Ntambala Fred v Uganda (SC) Crim. App No. 34 of 2015
that corroborative evidence is evidence from other sources which supports the testimony of the
complainant and connects or tends to connect the accused person to the commission of the crime.

Corroboration as a statutory requirement.

There are a number of statutes that require corroboration a necessity in certain instances. What is worth
noting is the effect of the corroboration requirement and the effect is that court must always get
corroboration and as such, cannot convict without it.

The Penal Code CAP 120, laws of Uganda has a number of offences where the evidence must be
corroborated before a conviction can be made. Such offences include treason, Perjury, Procuring
defilement of women by threats.

Corroboration of Unsworn Evidence of a Child:.

The children Act3, for example in petition for a declaration of parentage; unsworn evidence of a child of
tender years must be corroborated.

Section 12 of the oath’s Act 4provides: “No person shall be convicted or judgment given upon the
uncorroborated evidence of a person who shall have given his or her evidence without oath or affirmation”.

Section 101(3) of the Magistrates Court Act 5 provides:

“Where in any proceedings any child of tender years called as a witness does not, in the opinion of the
court understand the nature of an oath, the child’s evidence may be received though not given on oath, if in
the opinion of the court, the child is possessed of sufficient intelligence to justify the reception of the
evidence and understands the duty of speaking the truth.

Section 40(3) of the Trial on Indictment Act 6 provides more or less in similar terms on the same subject.

It reads “Where in any proceedings any child of tender years does not in the opinion of the court
understand the nature of an oath, his evidence may be received though not on oath, if in the opinion of the

3
Children Act CAP 59.
4
Cap 19, Laws of Uganda.
5
cap 16 ,Laws of Uganda.
6
TRIAL ON INDICTMENT ACT. CAP 23
court, he is possessed of sufficient intelligence to justify the reception of evidence and understands the
duty of speaking the truth.

Provided that where the evidence admitted by virtue of this subsection is given on behalf of the
prosecution, the accused shall not be liable to be convicted unless such evidence is corroborated by some
material evidence in support thereof implicating him”.

In the case of Uganda v Ngaswireki Paul & Anor, Criminal Appeal No. 3/2017, court held that It is trite law
that before taking the evidence of a child of tender age which is stated to be 14 years and below according
to Mukasa Deogratius Vs. Uganda Supreme Court Cr. Appeal 21/1993.

The court must first establish whether the child is possessed of sufficient intelligence to justify the reception
of that evidence and understands the duty of speaking the truth. In case the child is intelligent enough to
give evidence but does not understand the duty of speaking the truth, his or her evidence may be taken
without taking the oath but no conviction can follow unless, such evidence is corroborated by some other
material evidence in support of it implicating the accused.

The import of section 101(3) of the MCA and section 40(3) of the TIA is to ensure that the courts takes
evidence of the child of tender age only upon satisfaction that the child is intelligent enough to testify on
the matter before court and understands the duty of speaking the truth.

The Traffic and Road Safety ( Express Penalty Scheme For Road Traffic Offenders) Regulations,2004 ,
section 120( 2) “A person charged under this section with the offence of driving a motor vehicle, trailer or
engineering plant of any description on the road at a speed greater than the maximum speed allowed, shall
not be convicted solely on the evidence of one witness to the effect that in the opinion of the witness, the
person charged was driving the motor vehicle, trailer or engineering plant at that greater speed.”

Under the above provisions, corroboration is required and therefore single evidence is not permissible to
convict. Where a single witness is not believed a conviction could not follow. Witness evidence is not
always reliable, even when given in good faith. For example, if the accused is convicted on the basis of the
eye-witness evidence of a single police officer. And later it’s determined that the police officer had lied,
there would be a miscarriage of justice and this shows the dangers of a system without corroboration.

Apart from statutory requirements for corroboration, in judicial practice whether or not the evidence is
sworn, it must be corroborated. There are a number of circumstances of judicial prudence. The difference
between these and the statutory requirements is that here, the conviction based on this may not be fatal, as
court may not convict on uncorroborated evidence. The court has discretion to decide if the evidence is
reliable, but must always caution itself of the requirement for corroboration. Corroborative evidence as a
matter of judicial practice has several categories as explained below;

Corroboration of Accomplice Evidence.

This is governed by S.132 of the Evidence Act according to which an accomplice shall be a competent
witness against an accused person and a conviction is not illegal merely because it proceeds upon the
uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. By statutory provision, there is no requirement of this, but
courts have seen that it is evidence of the worst kind and must be corroborated. In R v Baskerville7 and R v
Manilal Purohit , it was emphasized that corroboration which should be looked for, is some additional
evidence rendering it probable that the evidence of the witness is true and it is reasonably safe to act upon
it, that it must be independent evidence which affects the accused by connecting him or tending to connect
him with the crime confirming in some material particular, not only the evidence that the crime has been
committed, but also that the accused committed it. However it is not necessary to have confirmation of all
circumstances of the crime. Corroboration of some material particular tending to implicate the accused is
enough. The rationale for corroboration in accomplice evidence as given in “The Handbook for Magistrates”

Accomplices are usually interested parties and they are generally always infamous witnesses as a result of
which their evidence is regarded as untrustworthy by courts because an accomplice is likely to tell lies in
order to shift guilt from him or to play down the part that he took commission in the offence. Secondly , as a
company , a partner in crime with the accused is not likely to value the oath and lastly an accomplice
usually gives evidence on the hope or promise to be pardoned or treated leniently by the prosecution.

Corroboration of evidence of Sexual Offences

The evidence of the victim must be corroborated in these offences as a rule of judicial practice. Historically
courts were as a matter of practice required to warn themselves of “the danger” of acting on the
uncorroborated evidence of a complainant in a sexual assault case. If no such warning was given, the
conviction would normally be set aside unless the appellate court was satisfied that there had been no
failure of justice. In East Africa the leading authority on this rule has been the decision of the East African

7
[1916]2 KB 667.
Court of Appeal in Chila and Another vs. R8. According to Glanville Williams (1962) CLR 662, there is a
sound reason for this requirement because sexual cases are particularly subject to a danger of deliberately
false charges resulting from sexual neurosis, fantasy, jealousy, spite or simply a girl’s refusal to admit that
she consented to an act of which she is now ashamed. In Ngobi v R9 Medical evidence was good
corroborative evidence that he the accused had defiled the girl. Lord Justice Salmon in R vs. Henry &
Manning 10that: “in cases of alleged sexual offences it is really dangerous to convict on the evidence of the
woman or girl alone. This is dangerous because human experience has shown that in these cases girls
and women do sometimes tell an entirely false story which is very easy to fabricate, but extremely difficult
to refute. Such stories are fabricated for all sorts of reasons, which I need not enumerate, and sometimes
for no reason at all.”

However, in Basoga Patrick vs. Uganda11, the Court of Appeal held that the requirement for corroboration
of evidence in sexual offences is discriminatory against women is therefore unconstitutional. The court cited
with approval the finding in the Kenyan case of Mukungu vs. R12 that: “the requirement for corroboration in
sexual offences affecting adult women and girls is unconstitutional to the extent that the requirement is
against them qua women or girls.”

However, If corroboration were abolished only for rape or other sexual offences any defence agent would
be making the point that this is the only crime that relies solely on single witness testimony – this puts the
complainer in a vulnerable position and could see conviction rates fall further. The defence would have
more opportunity to create doubt.

Corroboration of evidence on Dying Declarations

There must be corroborated as a matter of judicial prudence. In SABIITI VINCENT V UGANDA   Court said
that a dying declaration is admissible evidence but caution must be taken when relying on it to convict
because such evidence lacks cross examination. In addition, the circumstances under which the dying
declaration was made must be examined so as to determine whether the declarant was able to see the
accused. 

8
[1967] EA 722.
9
[1953] 20 EACA 56.
10
(1969) 53 Crim App Rep 150, 153.
11
Criminal Appeal No 42 of 2002.
12
(2003) 2 EA.
UGANDA V ALFRED OYAKA  Court held that the law regarding dying declarations is that to base
conviction from it, the declaration must be satisfactorily corroborated. Corroboration is an independent form
of proof evidence which confirms the complicity of an issue of an offence. Medical evidence showed that
the deceased suffered a ruptured uterus and on the evidence of the doctor showed that the rapture could
have been caused by violence or trauma on the abdomen on being hurt. This was consistent with the
violence meted out by the accused to the deceased. Therefore, this medical evidence accorded the
necessary corroboration to the dying declaration. 

Confessions against the co-accused; Retracted and Repudiated confessions.

In TUWAMOI V UGANDA Court held that the basic distinction between a retracted and a repudiated
confession is that a retracted confession occurs when the accused person admits that he made the
statements recorded but now seeks to take back what he said generally on the grounds that he had been
forced or induced to make the statement. In other words that the statement was not voluntary. A repudiated
statement is one which the accused avers that he never made. It is a well-established rule of prudence that
court shall not act when a retracted or repudiated confession has not been corroborated in some material
particulars or is not satisfied about its truth.

Identification

In all cases, the court requires corroboration, especially in the identification of a single witness under
difficult conditions for instances in the case of robbery at night. A conviction based solely on visual
identification evidence invariably causes a degree of uneasiness because such evidence can give rise to
miscarriages of justice. There is always the possibility that a witness though honest may be mistaken. For
this reason, the courts have over the years evolved rules of practice to minimize the danger that innocent
people may be wrongly convicted. It will be observed that there is no requirement in law or practice for
corroboration. In applying Abdalla Bin Wendo v R, there have sometimes been references to the need for
corroboration where the only evidence connecting the accused with the offence is the identification of a
single witness. Where the case against an accused depends wholly or substantially on the correctness of
one or more identifications of the accused, which the defence disputes, the judge should warn himself and
the assessors of the special need for caution before convicting the accused in reliance on the correctness
of the identification or identifications. The reason for the special caution is that there is a possibility that a
mistaken witness can be a convincing one and that even a number of such witnesses can all be mistaken.
The judge should then examine closely the circumstances in which the identification came be made.

Evidence of a child of tender years

According to the law, the unsworn evidence of a child of tender years requires corroboration so does
judicial practice. In Oloo s/o Gai v R13, the judge relied on evidence of a 12 year old child to convict the
appellant for murder. He did not warn himself of the need to corroborate the child’s evidence. The court of
Appeal held that it was erroneous for the judge to rely on the uncorroborated evidence of the child, even if it
had been sworn evidence. This is more so if the child is a prosecution witness. The rationale for this
according to Glanville William is that children can easily be coached therefore court must treat their
evidence cautiously; children are impressionable and susceptible; they are easily fooled, sometimes live in
a make believe world; they are ego-centric and only slowly learn the duty to tell the truth. A child’s power to
observation and reasoning is far below that of an adult therefore their evidence must be approached with
great care.

Inconsistencies and contradictions

The law on inconsistencies and discrepancies in a prosecution case is that grave inconsistencies unless
satisfactorily explained would usually result in the evidence of the witness being rejected but minor
inconsistencies would not have that effect unless the trial judge thought they point at deliberate
truthfulness. In Opoka v. Ug. 1991 HCB 9, once a prosecution witness has been shown to have told lies
against the accused, the evidence of such a witness must be treated with caution and should not to be
believed unless it is corroborated

13
[1960] EA 87.
Conclusion

The assessment of corroboration falls into two parts which are corroboration as question of law and as
question of fact. The terms and extent of the corroboration required in each case provided by the statutes
and except as provided no further corroboration is necessary as matter of law. In practice there are some
cases in which because of some inherent risk of unreliability, the court must warn itself of the dangers of
acting on uncorroborated evidence

Legally speaking, the requirement of corroboration of circumstantial evidence in certain situations does not
mean that it is weak evidence; circumstantial evidence is as good as direct evidence provided that all the
requirement of the law is met. The purpose of the law and practice in situation is to ensure that justice is
done.