Purpose Of Hearsay

The purpose of the hearsay rule is to prohibit a witness from reporting a statement made by another person where the purpose of the evidence is to establish the truth of what is contained in the statement.

In hearsay, the witnesses are asking the court to believe that they are telling the truth and the person who told them or whom they overheard was also telling the truth. It is the latter assumption which makes that hearsay is generally not admissible in court.

Statements were tendered to prove the truth of the matter; however, since the maker of the statement is not available to be a witness, the truthfulness and the accuracy of the statement could not be tested in court through cross-examination.

The idea of cross-examination is to test the reliability of the evidence of the witnesses. However, when the maker of the statement is not available for cross-examination, the court did not have the opportunity to ascertain the

It is a report of another person’s words by a witness. It means that the witnesses testify about something they overheard, or something someone has told them, or even something someone has written. The witnesses themselves have no personal knowledge of the events or incidents.

Hearsay is, as mentioned before, a report of another person’s statements, that is, where A tells the court what B told him C said. Because the evidence is repeated by different people, there may be a likelihood of distortion from the original statements. The person who reports the words of another in addition may have misheard or misinterpreted them.

Thus, the main implications of the hearsay rule are as follows:

• Witnesses must give oral evidence. This is because the courts came to regard oral testimony by witnesses, who could be cross-examined on their testimony, as essential to a fair trial.

• Witnesses must give evidence from first-hand knowledge, and may not repeat what other people have told