To the President of the Legislation Committee of the States of Jersey
Part I Introduction
1.1 The Commission received comments from only four persons following the publication of its consultation paper No. 3 on The Best Evidence Rule in Civil Proceedings in October 1999 ("the Consultation Paper"). However, general comment has been favourable and therefor there are few amendments to the conclusions and recommendations set out in the Consultation Paper.
1.2 The respondents to the Consultation Paper were generally agreed that Jersey should adopt the third of the choices outlined therein, specifically that Jersey should introduce statutory reform along the lines of the UK's Civil Evidence Act, 1995. Notwithstanding the general acceptance of that proposal, concern was expressed by one respondent that local practitioners were not necessarily best placed to be aware of any difficulties that had been encountered within the UK following the implementation of the Civil Evidence Act 1995, and enquiries were consequently made of the UK Judiciary in that respect. A further source of concern was that, if legislation equivalent to the Civil Evidence Act 1995 were adopted by Jersey, the Court would have no ability to exclude hearsay evidence, even if satisfied that it would be of no assistance whatsoever to the matters in issue, thereby wasting Court time to the prejudice of other cases.