Law of Evidence

Instructor: Solomon Goraw . (LL.B, LL.M, Lecturer)

Wollo University

School of Law

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 Introduction
Review of the First
Chapter

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 Introductory Points
 What is evidence?
• Evidence is anything with which the existence and non-existence
of a disputed fact is proved.
 The term „evidence‟ may refer to the facts that are adduced as relevant
and admissible to prove the disputed fact; or it may refer to the
means/methods of presentation of the relevant facts such as oral
testimonies, documents evidences, experiments, electronic data (audio,
video, pictures, texts) etc.
• The law that governs the relevancy, admissibility, production and
related matters in a court or tribunal is referred to as evidence
law.
• In common law legal system, evidence law is a more organized
discipline of law because the system involves jurors who are not
legal professionals having no legal and analytical skill of
evaluating evidences evidences presented by opposing parties in
a court litigation; hence they need to be assisted and guided by a
comprehensive code of evidence.
 But as a late development, civil law countries are also adopting a
separate evidence code in order to assist and guide the proof process in
adjudication.
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Cont‟d
 Evidence law in civil law and common law legal
systems
• The purpose of the comparative analysis is to identify the
strength and weakness of each system and get a lesson.
• The common law trial is characterized by adversarial system
in which the opposing parties play a primary role in
examining the witnesses; and the role of the judge is minimal
as opposed to inquisitorial system. Does this traditional
distinction affect the system of evidence?
 The distinction does not seem to be valid anymore as most systems
practice a blend of the two.
• What are the other differences between the two legal
systems in terms of evidence?
 Oral Vs documentary evidence; which should obtain high evidentiary
value? Do you agree with the difference of emphasis between civil
and common law traditions?

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Cont‟d
• How do see the debatable issue of being a witness
to ones own case and taking testimony from those
who are closely related to parties?
 The general trend is that in common law systems, parties
themselves can be competent witness; whereas in civil law,
it is not allowed
 This seems to be highly dependent upon the criminal
justice administration in ensuring the deliberate prejudices
and lies (perjury)during oral testimonies. But how far this
ensure the high possibility of bias of witnesses in favor of
their case or their relatives?
 The Ethiopian perspective is that it can be understood
from the reading of the Civil Procedure, Criminal
Procedure and the FDRE Constitution that parties and
their relatives can adduce oral testimony after giving oath,
which follows the general tradition of common law
evidentiary practice.

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Cont‟d
• Hearsay evidence
 Testimony of a witness who has no direct knowledge
of what he tells about (hearsay) is not admissible in
common law legal systems.
 In civil legal systems, the discretion to admit hearsay
evidence is left to the judge
 How hearsay is looked at under the Ethiopian
evidence law?

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Ethiopian Evidence Law: A Preview
There is no separate code of evidence law in
Ethiopia.
• The evidence law of Ethiopia shares the features of
the civil and common law evidence systems.
 Emphasis to documentary evidence and the admissibility of
hearsay evidence based on the discretion of the judge
characterizes Ethiopian evidence law taking the feature of
civil law.
 What commonalty could you mention between Ethiopian
evidence rules and the common law evidence system?
Sources of Ethiopian Evidence Law
• Evidence rules are to be found scattered through
substantive and procedural laws of the country.
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Sources … Cont‟d
• Cassation decisions on basic errors of evidence law.
 Even though there is no full-fledged precedent system in
Ethiopia, the cassation review of the Federal Supreme
Court on fundamental interpretational errors of the lower
courts is a binding interpretation; hence decisions related
to evidence matters are another source of law for
Ethiopian evidence law.
• Internationally accepted principles and rules of
evidence
 Besides the scattered rules across various laws of the
country under titles such as “proof of marriage”, proof of
…” and many legal presumptions and other evidence
related provisions, internationally accepted principles of
evidence law are also another sources that have been used
to fill the existing gaps of Ethiopian evidence rules.

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Evidence in Criminal and Civil Cases
 The purpose of evidence law in criminal and civil cases
• Evidence law has the same purpose both in criminal and civil
proceeding which is to guide and assist the court to establish the
truth; but the difference lies in the strict rules in criminal evidence
to ensure fair trial to the accused.
• criminal evidence contains many rules excluding relevant evidences
such as bad character or previous conviction.
 The standard of proof
• The standard of persuasion required in civil and criminal cases is
different, owing to the serious consequences of criminal conviction
to life and liberty of the accused; and the obvious imbalance of the
parties in criminal litigation which may unfairly lead to wrong
decision.
• Accordingly, the standard of proof for criminal case is „beyond
reasonable doubt‟
 The underlying assumption is that it is preferable to acquit a criminal than to
punish an innocent.
• The standard of proof for civil cases is preponderance/balance of
evidence

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Cont‟d
The Burden of Proof
• The burden of in criminal and civil disputes lies
upon the one who claims.
• In criminal matters, it is the public prosecutor
that has to prove the elements of the crime as
defined in the substantive criminal law.
 This burden of proof has got its basis from the
principle of the presumption of innocence.
• In civil cases, the well known rule that the one
who asserts will bear a burden of proof.

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 Chapter Two
Facts Which May Be Proved
Other Than By Evidence
 Facts That Need No Proof
As a general rule, every claim of the
parties in the litigation must be supported
by evidence. Exceptionally, however, there
are three types of facts that do not
necessarily need proof; these are:
1. Admitted facts
2. Presumptions & inferences
3. Judicial notice
 Lets discuss each of these exceptions
one by one

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 1. Admissions
Admission is to concede to the fact
asserted by the opponent.
If a fact alleged by the one is admitted to
be true by the other party, it doesn‟t have
to be proved by the claiming party;
because a party is not expected to make
himself liable through admission; he is
expected to know better about himself
than anybody else.

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Cont‟d
Admission can either be formal or informal
• Formal admissions are those that are made before a
body authorize to receive admission such as courts,
investigating officer, commissioner delegated to
conduct trial proceedings.
• Informal admissions refer to those admissions that
are made in civil dealings and everyday relationships.
 Ex: an admission made to a friend orally, in a letter or email.
• It is obvious that the ones that are given before the
authorized organ have high evidentiary weight
(probative value) than informal admissions.

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Cont‟d
Again, formal admissions may further be
classified as judicial and extra-judicial (out of
court) admissions.
• Judicial admissions: are those admissions made
before a court entertaining a case or a
commissioner delegated for by a court having a
jurisdiction on the case.
 Regarding the conclusiveness of judicial admissions, they
are conclusive for civil cases unless the admission is vague
and doubtful in which case the court may require the other
party to substantiate his claim with evidence.
 Admission in civil cases can be made in pleadings, during
hearing. Or though mutual agreement of the parties.
 Evasive (general) denial of the a claim constitutes admission by
necessary implication.

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Cont‟d
Judicial admissions in criminal cases
• A s a rule, a plea of guilty before court is conclusive
and the court shall give verdict forthwith.
• But if a court believe that the confession is made
for other reasons such as to cover someone's
crimes or for fame, he may require the prosecutor
to continue producing evidences in accordance
with the elements of the charge.
• The law clearly provides that if the confession is
made with reservation, a plea of not guilty shall be
entered.

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Cont‟d
Extra-judicial admissions
• These are out of court formal admissions made
before an authority.
• In criminal cases, confessions made before a
police officer is not conclusive, and in most
cases it is subject to rejection by criminal
benches, taking the brutality and illegal method
police investigation.

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END OF SESSION

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