Should Illegally Obtained Evidence Then Be Admissible in Court
The current stand in Singapore is that evidence obtained through private entrapment is admissible in courts; as long as it not admitted “unfairly against the accused”. However, the phrase “unfairly against the accused” is very ambiguous in nature as it is hard define what unfairly means. In the paper entitled “Whether a Singapore Court has a Discretion to Exclude Evidence Admissible in Criminal Proceedings, “unfairly” was _____.
Should illegally obtained evidence then be admissible in court?
We proposed that they should not.
If we study the system used in UK, s 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 states in s 78(1), “In any proceedings, the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceeding that the court ought not to admit it.”
The problem that arises upon allowing private entrapment would be that it would be unfair in the trial for the accused. In [R v Sang], under s 78 of PACE,
Secondly, to allow for private entrapment would mean that there is an abuse of process which claims that it is “the use of legal process to accomplish an unlawful purpose”. In the case of Latif, the defendants claimed that they had induced to commit the crime with which they were charged and hence, this was an abuse of process to institute criminal proceedings – evidence obtained such illegal means ought not to be admitted into the courts. Lord Steyn, in the case of Latif, addresses this issue, “In this case the issue is whether, despite the fact that a fair trial was possible, the judge ought to have stayed the criminal proceedings on broader considerations of the integrity of the criminal justice system...” It is thus contradictory of the state to employ illegal means in upholding the law,
Should illegally obtained evidence then be admissible in court?
We proposed that they should not.
If we study the system used in UK, s 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 states in s 78(1), “In any proceedings, the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceeding that the court ought not to admit it.”
The problem that arises upon allowing private entrapment would be that it would be unfair in the trial for the accused. In [R v Sang], under s 78 of PACE,
Secondly, to allow for private entrapment would mean that there is an abuse of process which claims that it is “the use of legal process to accomplish an unlawful purpose”. In the case of Latif, the defendants claimed that they had induced to commit the crime with which they were charged and hence, this was an abuse of process to institute criminal proceedings – evidence obtained such illegal means ought not to be admitted into the courts. Lord Steyn, in the case of Latif, addresses this issue, “In this case the issue is whether, despite the fact that a fair trial was possible, the judge ought to have stayed the criminal proceedings on broader considerations of the integrity of the criminal justice system...” It is thus contradictory of the state to employ illegal means in upholding the law,