Section 3 Rules of Court.

Admissibility of evidence - Evidence is admissible when it is

relevant to the issue and is not excluded by law or these rules.

I. Introduction.

A. Admissibility- the character or quality which any material must necessarily possess
for it to be accepted and allowed to be presented or introduced as evidence in court.
It answers the question: should the court allow the material to be used as evidence by
the party?

B. Weight- the value given or significance or impact, or importance given to the material
after it has been admitted; its tendency to convince or persuade. Hence a particular
evidence may be admissible but it has no weight. Conversely, an evidence may be of
great weight or importance but it is not admissible.

II. Conditions for admissibility (Axioms of admissibility per Wigmore)

A. RELEVANCY (None but facts having rational probative value are admissible). Per
section 4, “Evidence must have such a relation to the fact in issue as to induce belief
in its existence or non-existence”.

1. The material presented as evidence must affect the issue or question. It must
have a bearing on the outcome of the case. It requires both:

a). rational or logical relevancy in that it has a connection to the issue and
therefore it has a tendency to establish the fact which it is offered to prove. The
evidence must therefore have probative value

b). legal relevancy in that the evidence is offered to prove a matter which has
been properly put in issue as determined by the pleadings in civil cases, or as
fixed by the pre-trial order, or as determined by substantive law. If so the matter
has materiality.

Illustration: (i). Criminal case: the fact that the crime was committed at nighttime is
rationally or logically relevant to a killing at 12 midnight but evidence thereon would be
not be legally relevant if nighttime was not alleged in the Information. It would be
immaterial. (ii) Civil Case: In an action for sum of money based on a promissory note,
evidence that the defendant was misled into signing the note would be rationally relevant
but if fraud was never alleged as a defense, then evidence thereof would be legally
irrelevant or immaterial.

The components of relevancy are therefore probative value and materiality.

 2. Rule as to collateral matters: “Evidence on collateral matters shall not be allowed,
except when it tends in any reasonable degree to establish the probability or
improbability of the facts in issue”

a). collateral matters-facts or matters which are not in issue. They are not
generally allowed to be proven except when relevant.

b) In criminal cases, the collateral matters allowed to be proven, being relevant

include:

(i). Antecedent Circumstances, or those in existing even prior to the commission of the
crime. They include such matters as habit, custom, bad moral character when self
defense is invoked; or plan design, conspiracy, or premeditation, agreement to a price,
promise or reward

(ii) Concomitant circumstances or those which accompany the commission of the crime
such as opportunity to do the act or incompatibility

(iii).Subsequent circumstances or those which occur after the commission of the crime,
such as flight, escape, concealment, offer of compromise

c). Example: Motive is generally irrelevant and proof thereof is not allowed except:
when the evidence is purely circumstantial, when there is doubt as to the identity
of the accused, or when it is an element of the crime.

B. COMPETENCY ( All facts having rational probative value are admissible unless
some specific law or rule forbids). In short the evidence is not excluded by law or rules.