Exclusionary Rules of Evidence: Hearsay Rule and Its Exceptions in Nigeria

Abstract

Both rules and legal principles are the elements of the law of evidence. This mainly drives legal proceeding. These basically form the decision rules of the court. The quantity, quality and type can also be judged from this law of evidence. However, in a criminal matter, there are a number of issues which either the prosecutor or the defence will have to prove in order to persuade the court to find in their favour. The law must therefore ensure certain guidelines are set out in order to make certain that the evidence adduced before the court is reliable. It has evidence that hearsay evidence is invalid, with an exception of the Nigerian Evidence Act of 2011.The aim of this paper therefore is to give an overview of hearsay rule, its exceptions and applicability in Nigeria with particular consideration of dying declaration. The paper finds that the modern formulation of the hearsay rule emphasis that it operates only on out-of-court assertions and only where such an assertion is tendered for a particular purpose. The paper concludes that there are several exclusionary rules under which the courts will not accept certain matters as evidence of a fact.