Day 190 - 23 Nov 95 - Page 08
1 "Rule
2 The general rule both in civil and criminal
3 cases is that any relevant statement made by a
4 party is evidence against himself.
5 In civil cases, statements made out of
6 court by a party to the proceedings or by a
7 person connected with him by any of the
8 relationships considered in subsequent sections
9 of this chapter are admissible in evidence
10 against but not usually in favour of such a
11 party. The sections in which such relations are
12 considered are:
13
14 5. Admissions of nominal representative and
15 real parties....."
16
17 Then the other relevant two, perhaps:
18
19 "7. Admissions of partners, joint
20 contractors, co-trustees and associates.
21 8. Admissions of certain agents and
22 referees.
23
24 "These admissions of others may, unless
25 amounting to estoppels, be contradicted or
26 explained in the same way as those made by the
27 party himself. The admissions of a party are
28 generally receivable against him whenever made,
29 while those of others can only affect when made
30 during the continuance of, and with reference
31 to, the particular character or interest
32 entitling them to be proved."
33
34 Then there is a passage about criminal cases. Then 24-03
35 on page 620, first paragraph:
36
37 "Invariably a party's admission is proved
38 by another witness. The witness's evidence is
39 hearsay because (a) it involves relating to the
40 court what another person said, and (b) the
41 admission is tendered as evidence of the truth
42 of its contents. In such circumstances, the
43 evidence is received under an exception to the
44 rule against hearsay, which until recently, for
45 the purposes of both criminal and civil
46 proceedings, was a common law exception.
47 However, by virtue of sections 9(1) and 9(2)(a)
48 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, for the purposes
49 of civil proceedings, the exception is now
50 statutory."
51
52 All that does -- and it is in the bundle that I am reading,
53 and I ask your Lordship to look at it, it is tab 3 -- is,
54 as it were, to restate the common law rule, or to say that
55 the common law is preserved.
56
57 My Lord, I need not, I think, read the passage headed
58 "Ground of reception", because it is argumentative; nor
59 the passage (of which we have only a part) "Formal
60 admissions for the purposes of trial", because we are not
