Recent Developments in the Hearsay Rule

• Main Authors: CHEN, Siyuan, KHNG, Nathaniel
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2010
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Courts; Judges; Public Law and Legal Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/932
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The Court of Appeal recently delivered an important judgment on the admissibility of a specific type of evidence that is an exception from the hearsay rule. What happens when, in a “group crime” situation, the Prosecution adduces evidence in the form of a confession of a deceased co-accused who was not jointly tried? Does s. 378(1)(b)(i) of the Criminal Procedure Code become an avenue for the admission of such a piece of evidence, or does s. 378(1)(b)(i) need to be read together with s. 30 of the Evidence Act? This note considers if the Court of Appeal was correct in overruling the High Court’s decision that answered the former question in the affirmative. It also analyses the Court of Appeal’s broader and perhaps more important discussion on the relationship between the hearsay rule, the Evidence Act, and the Criminal Procedure Code.