LAW OF EVIDENCE

INTRODUCTION
 INTRODUCTION
• The law of evidence is defined as ‘‘that body of rules regulating the
means by which facts may be proved in courts of law.’’ Law of
evidence means by which facts are put before the court to
determine whether litigant succeeds in his claim or not.
• The process of litigation and adjudication, the proof of facts is
regulated by the law of evidence. Courts normally have to make a
finding concerning the existence or non-existence of certain facts
before pronouncing itself on a case before it.
• The law of evidence is closely linked to criminal and civil procedure
and forms part of that branch of the law referred to as adjectival
law.
 FUNCTIONS OF THE LAW OF EVIDENCE

1. relevance- relevance means that the evidence must be logically

probative, in other words what evidence may lawfully be withheld
from a court of law.
2. admissibility- determines what facts are legally admissible to
prove the facts in issue
3. Manner of adducing evidence- Also determines in what manner
evidence should or may be adduced
4. weight- what rules should be taken into account in assessing the
weight or strength of evidence and what standard of proof should be
satisfied before a party bearing the burden of proof can be
successful.
5. evaluation- takes into consideration the evaluation of the facts
such if the evidence is biased, self-interested, ambiguous,
embarrassing, mistakes…
 examples
CIVIL LITIGATION
• Sale of a car. There arises a dispute that the sale of the car
did not occur.
• Seller- The seller seeks to convince the court that his
allegations that the sale occurred is true and that his case
should succeed. To do so he furnishes proof of the
truthfulness of his allegations.
• He could choose to show documents such as receipts or
bring witnesses to the delivery of the car.
• The court will use the law of evidence to assess the
truthfulness of the probability of his allegations.
 examples
CRIMINAL LITIGATION
• The prosecution alleges that Thabo murdered the deceased.
• To obtain a conviction for the murder the prosecution must convince
the court beyond reasonable doubt that Thabo intentionally shot
dead the deceased without any justification and that indeed it was
Thabo who did caused the death of the deceased.
• To do so the prosecution needs to furnish proof and evidence of the
truthfulness of the allegations.
• The prosecution can call eye-witnesses, post-mortem report,
ballistics report…
• The court will then use the law of evidence to determine the guilt
of the accused.
 articles
• Read M.A Owori, ‘‘The evaluation of Evidence
Before the DDPR’’