CONFESSIONAL EVIDENCE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30666, 4 February 1965, Page 1

CONFESSIONAL EVIDENCE

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 3.

A police officer’s sense of fair play in a case was likely to be of much great importance than mere compliance with a set of written rules, the Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowclough) said today.

Sir Harold Barrowclough was host at a judges’ conferance which has ended in Wellington. The conference, attended by chief justices from Australian States, considered at length the new judges’ rules promulgated by judges of the Queen’s Bench Division in England. Neither the old nor the new English judges’ rules had the force of law in Australia or in New Zealand, said Sir Harold Barrowclough, in a prepared statement.

In considering whether confessional statements made by persons charged with crimes ought to be admitted in evidence the Australian and New Zealand courts had taken into account whether police officers had complied with the spirit of the rules. Not Decisive Factor But Australian and New Zealand courts had never regarded compliance or noncompliance as a decisive factor and had always emphasised that it was for the court to take into account all the circumstances of an individual case in determining whether a confessional statement should be admitted. The Australasian chief justices emphasised that they had no authority to make any such rules, said Sir Harold .Barrowelough. It was for the authorities in charge of the various police forces to make their own rules for the good conduct and guidance of their officers. The judges were always on their guard to ensure that fair conduct was observed by the police in the examination of suspects. The law required a judge to determine whether in the

light of all the circumstances of a case there were such elements of unfairness in the use made by the police of their position in relation to the accused that a confession alleged to have been made by him ought to be rejected. There was the right of appeal against a decision of a

Judge admitting an incriminating statement.

“It follows that it would be entirely inappropriate for this conference to purport to approve or disapprove the new detailed rules formulated by the English Judges,” said Sir Harold Barrowclough. “But it may be that the police commissioners or other proper authorities will give consideration to them in the formulation of administrative instructions.

“Should amendments be made to the existing instructions, no doubt Judges will in the course of trials take them into account as an administrative attempt to prescribe standards of propriety for the conduct of police interviews. “But no code of rules can guarantee fairness and justice in advance in every case,” he said.