An Attempt to Update the Law of Evidence

Abstract

When Dean Feller did me the honour of inviting me to give the Lionel Cohen lecture for 1973 one of the subjects I submitted, and the one accepted by him, was “Reforming the Law of Evidence—The English Experience”. For me those were the halcyon days before the publication of the 11th Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee; the law of evidence in civil cases had been modernised by the Civil Evidence Acts of 1968 and 1972, and I pictured the draft Criminal Evidence Bill annexed to the 11th Report going merrily through Parliament, if not without some protest and amendment, at least with celerity and the certitude of becoming law. Alas, this was not to be. To describe the reception of the Report as “unenthusiastic” would be the understatement of the century; but, although I must confess to considerable pessimism concerning the questions when and to what extent the draft Bill will become law in England, I am pleased that it should continue to be the subject of my lecture, although the title of the latter had perforce to undergo some change in order to cater for the fact that the English experience of reforming the law of evidence is too incomplete to allow for profitable discussion.