Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2015
Abstract
In 2012, Singapore’s venerable Evidence Act (EA), which is based on Stephen’s Indian Evidence Act of 1872, underwent major amendments for only the third time in 120 years. Previously, conflicting case law had created long-standing confusion as to whether the Singapore courts possessed any discretion to exclude evidence even when was found relevant under the EA. The main reason driving this jurisprudential inconsistency was that while the relevancy provisions in the EA were meant to provide exhaustive definitions of admissibility, Stephen’s then-revolutionary ‘inclusionary’ approach to relevance was simply at odds with modern conceptions of relevance and modern litigation practice. Thus, more often than not, the Singapore courts would refer to the common law rules of evidence rather than the EA.
Keywords
Indian Evidence Act of 1872, exclusionary discretion, interests of justice, probative value and prejudicial effect, Singapore
Discipline
Asian Studies | Evidence
Publication
International Journal of Evidence and Proof
Volume
19
Issue
1
First Page
67
Last Page
72
ISSN
1740-5572
Identifier
10.1177/1365712714566374
Publisher
Blackstone Press
Citation
CHEN, Siyuan.
'In the Interests of Justice' as the New Test to Exclude Relevant Evidence in Singapore: ANB v ANC [2014] SGHC 172; Wan Lai Ting v Kea Kah Kim [2014] SGHC 180. (2015). International Journal of Evidence and Proof. 19, (1), 67-72.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1321
Copyright Owner and License
Author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
http://doi.org/10.1177/1365712714566374