The Commission believes that the implementation of these recommendations will be a substantial contribution to making the administration of justice more certain, more fair and more intelligible.

Witnesses will be allowed to give evidence in a natural way. Many of the statements to. which a witness is likely to refer will be automatically admissible, e.g., his own and those of other witnesses. Many others will not be worth objecting to because of the probability that the court will admit them.

Litigants will be more likely to get just decisions, because the courts will be able to consider a wider range of useful evidence. To illustrate this, consider what will happen in the cases used as examples on pp. 4 and 5, if the recommendations are implemented.

1. Both the wife and the doctor will be able to give evidence of the dead worker’s description of his accident.
2. It will be possible to prove the witness’s admissions, either through his letters or the evidence of someone who heard him make the statements, if he is dead, or if he is called as a witness, or if there is justification for not calling him.
3. The customer will be able to put in evidence against the railway company the statements of the employee, because they related to a matter of which he had superintendence.
4. As the girl is now dead, her statement about the attack will be able to be proved by someone who heard her make it.
5. The girl’s statement will be admissible if she gives evidence or is too young to, give evidence, or if the court thinks the statement is reliable. If none of these avenues is available the court will be able to admit it as a statement tending to support the acquittal of the accused.
6. The driver’s statement will be admissible in evidence against his employer because the driver was speaking of something within the scope of his employment of which he had personal knowledge.
7. If the victim of the assault is called as a witness, the person to whom he told the number will be able to give evidence of it, and the piece of paper it was written down on will also be admissible.
8. The other police will be allowed to give evidence of the dead man’s description of his attackers.
9. As the witness is giving evidence, his earlier statement will not only be available to attack his recollection or truthfulness, but will be admissible as some evidence of what really happened.
10. The court will be able to admit the evidence of the other person’s confession as evidence tending to support the acquittal of the accused, if it is not admissible in some other way.
11. If the woman gives evidence herself, she herself, the doctor and the other persons will be allowed to give evidence of her statements that she was injured at work.

Although the recommendations deal with what may seem at first sight a technical matter for lawyers, their implementation will make a big difference to ordinary people who come to the courts, whether as witnesses or as civil litigants, or accused of a criminal offence.