1. Jeffrey Pinsler SC, Evidence and the Litigation Process, 4th ed. (LexisNexis, Butterworths, 2013)

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1 As at 9 May 2015 SCHOOL OF LAW Year 2015/16 Term 1 COURSE CODE: LAW 307 COURSE TITLE: LAW OF EVIDENCE (1.0 UNIT) Instructor: Crystal Tan A. COURSE DESCRIPTION This course examines the evidential rules, theories and policies that trial judges, lawyers and litigants must deal with in a court hearing. The Law of Evidence is concerned with the issues of admissibility of evidence, modes of proof, the manner of production of evidence, and the burden of proof. B. RECOMMENDED TEXT AND READINGS Recommended Textbooks 1. Jeffrey Pinsler SC, Evidence and the Litigation Process, 4th ed. (LexisNexis, Butterworths, 2013) Reference Books 1. Colin Tapper, Cross & Tapper on Evidence, 12th ed (OUP, 2010) 2. Paul Roberts & Adrian Zuckerman, Criminal Evidence, 2nd ed (OUP, 2010) 3. Adrian Keane & Paul McKeown, The Modern Law of Evidence, 9th ed (OUP, 2012) 4. I H Dennis, The Law of Evidence, 5th ed (Sweet & Maxwell, 2013) 5. Chin Tet Yung, Evidence (Butterworths, 1988) Background reading 1. MC Sarkar (ed), Sarkar s Law of Evidence (Nagpur: Wadhwa & Co, 2007) 2. Ratanlal Ranchhoddas (ed), Ratanlal & Dhirajlal s The Law of Evidence (Nagpur, India: Wadhwa & Co., 2010) Access to Singapore and UK case report and local journals is available at

2 Access to Singapore statutes is available at Where required, students may also be expected to download materials from the legal databases accessible from the SMU Law Library website, if possible, such materials will be distributed to them through . C. ASSESSMENT METHODS The respective percentages for the assessment components in the course are as follows: Group Assignment : 15% Individual Class Participation : 15% Research paper : 20% Final Exam : 50% Group presentations will begin from Week 3. Students will be informed of their group allocations in Week 1. The final examination will be conducted on an open-book basis and the duration would be 3 hours. This will normally consist of one compulsory essay question and one compulsory hypothetical question. D. COURSE SCHEDULE Each week comprises 3 hours of contact time (3 hour weekly seminar). There are 12 teaching weeks in total (weeks 1 7; weeks 9 13), followed by a week for student revision in week 14. Recess week is in week 8. The final examination is in week 15. E. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY All acts of academic dishonesty (including, but not limited to, plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, facilitation of acts of academic dishonesty by others, unauthorized possession of exam questions, or tampering with the academic work of other students) are serious offences. Materials as well as ideas gleaned from other sources must therefore be attributed accordingly. All work (whether oral or written) submitted for purposes of assessment must be the student s own work. Penalties for violation of the policy range from zero marks for the component assessment to expulsion, depending on the nature of the offence. When in doubt, students should consult the instructors of the course. Details on the SMU Code of Academic Integrity may be accessed at 2

3 F. CLASS SCHEDULE 1 Public holidays: 24 Sep (Thurs), 10 Nov (Tues) Week 1 (17 Aug 23 Aug 2015) o Introduction to Evidence course o Sources of evidence law in Singapore o Burden of proof o Standards of proof o Presumptions Chapter o Chen, A Preliminary Survey of the Right to Presumption of Innocence in Singapore (2012) LawAsia Journal o Gabriel, Burden of Proof and Standard of Proof in Civil Litigation (2013) 25 Singapore Academy of Law Journal 130 Week 2 (24 Aug 30 Aug 2015) o Relevance o Admissibility o Weight of evidence Chapter 2 o Margolis, The Concept of Relevance (1990) Singapore Law Review Week 3 (31 Aug 6 Sep 2015) o Illegally obtained evidence; Entrapment o Judicial discretion to exclude evidence 1 Students will be notified via should there be any changes to the class schedule. 3

4 Chapter 10 o Muhammad bin Kadar v PP [2011] 3 SLR 1205 o Chen, The Judicial Discretion to Exclude Relevant Evidence: Perspectives from an Indian Evidence Act Jurisdiction (2012) International Journal of Evidence and Proof o Pinsler, Whether a Singapore Court has a Discretion to Exclude Evidence Admissible in Criminal Proceedings (2010) 22 Singapore Academy of Law Journal 335 Week 4 (7 13 Sep 2015) - Topic o Hearsay (I) Chapter 4 Week 5 (14 20 Sep 2015) - Topic o Hearsay (II) Chapter 6 o Chin, Hearsay Reforms: Simplicity in Statute, Pragmatism in Practice? (2014) Singapore Academy of Law Journal 398 Week 6 (21 27 Sep 2015) o Statements and admissibility o Right of silence o Chen, Redefining Relevancy and Exclusionary Discretion (2015) International Commentary on Evidence Week 7 (28 Sep 4 Oct 2015) 4

5 o Similar fact evidence Chapter 3 o Chen, The Future of the Similar Fact Rule (2013) NUJSLR o Ho, An Introduction to Similar Fact Evidence (1998) Singapore Law Review o Ho, Similar Facts in Civil Cases (2006) 26 OJLS 131 Week 8 (3 11 Oct 2015) Recess Week 9 (12 16 Oct 2015) o Character evidence o Corroborative evidence Chapter Week 10 (19 25 Oct 2015) - Lesson on o Competence and compellability o Opinion and expert evidence Week 11 (26 Oct 1 Nov 2015) o Legal professional privilege: Legal advice privilege; Litigation privilege 5

6 Chapter 14 Week 12 (2 8 Nov 2015) o Privilege against self-incrimination, public interest privilege, without prejudice communications o Close of prosecution s case o Prosecutorial discretion and the MDA and MDA o Chen, The 2012 Amendments to Singapore s Evidence Act: More Questions than Answers as Regards Expert Opinion Evidence? (2013) Statute Law Review o Pinsler, Admissibility and the Discretion to Exclude Evidence: In Search of a Systematic Approach (2013) 25 Singapore Academy of Law Journal 215 o Pinsler, Expert Evidence and Adversarial Compromise: A Re- Consideration of the Expert s Role and Proposals for Reform (2015) 27 Singapore Academy of Law Journal 55 o Chen, Criminal Procedure and Evidence in Goh and Tan (eds), Singapore Law: 50 Years in the Making (Academy Publishing, 2015) o Chen, The Discretionary Death Penalty for Drug Couriers in Singapore (2015) TBC Week 13 (9 15 Nov 2015) Revision of Topics Week 14 (16 22 Nov 2015) Self-revision Week 15 Final Examination 6