Episode 2: 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 start looking at the Victorian laws of Evidence, starting with relevance, discretionary exclusions, circumstantial evidence, and examination in chief.

You can find the notes, and other resources, here.