Relevance, and witnesses part 1

A warm welcome to our discussion of Victorian evidence law. We’ll start at the very beginning, and that is the principles of relevance, discretionary and mandatory exclusion. We travel through circumstantial evidence, particularly in criminal cases, before catching our first glimpse of the rules governing competence and compellability in witnesses. Examination in chief is our final destination, including non-leading questions, restoring memory, unfavourable witnesses and our first mention of Jones v Dunkel. It won’t be the last time we spot that case.In our next episode, we’ll finish up cross-examination and start looking at the evidentiary privileges.

You can find the notes, and other resources, here. The Judicial College of Victoria provides an absolute wealth of resources on relevance, circumstantial evidence in criminal cases, discretionary and mandatory exclusions, competence and compellability starting here, and examination in chief and re-examination.