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Beijing Convention prevents...
Continue readingOn any given day in a Nigerian police station, a suspect is brought in for questioning. Sometimes, the questioning is done properly. Often, it is not. What happens next, the statement that emerges from that interrogation, may become the most important piece of evidence in a criminal trial. Whether that statement is admitted into evidence can determine whether a person goes free or goes to prison. Confessions are extraordinary evidence. They are admissions by the accused person themselves that they committed the crime. When believed and properly obtained, they are among the strongest evidence a prosecution can have. The Supreme Court...
Continue readingA defendant files a statement of defence in a land dispute. In paragraph four, he admits that the plaintiff has been farming on the disputed land since 1998 but says this was done with his permission. That admission, buried in a pleading, can be powerful. The plaintiff no longer needs to prove years of possession. The defendant has conceded it. The dispute narrows to whether the plaintiff's occupation was permissive or adverse. This is an admission at work. It is one of the most significant concepts in Nigerian evidence law because it directly reduces what the opposing party must prove, and...
Continue readingA police officer walks into court and says: "The witness told me that she saw the accused stab the deceased." The accused's counsel is on their feet immediately: objection. The officer did not see anything. He is simply repeating what someone else told him. If the court accepts his evidence to prove that the stabbing happened, it is convicting on the basis of a statement that was never tested under cross-examination, made by a person who is not before the court, on oath. That is the problem with hearsay evidence. And it is why, across centuries of common law and now...
Continue readingIf a man is charged with raping a woman in a hotel room, can the prosecution bring evidence that he committed the same act against three other women in hotel rooms in a similar manner over the past two years? The gut reaction of many students is: of course. That evidence makes him look like a serial offender. Why would the court not hear it? The gut reaction is wrong. Evidence of past misconduct is one of the most carefully controlled areas in Nigerian evidence law. Bringing in evidence of what a person did before, simply to show they are the...
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