Special Types of Practice: Court Trials & Appeal Courts - Guides
Court Trials & Appeal Courts
6. Objections
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 18 Jul 2015
- Throughout the course of a trial evidence will be admissible if it tends to prove or disprove a fact relevant to one of the issues in dispute between the parties.
- The laws in every state and territory provide that evidence will not be received by a court during an examination-in-chief if its reception is:
- forbidden by the rules of evidence such as irrelevant questions, leading questions, questions dealing with more than one single issue, questions which include incorrect reference to earlier evidence, unqualified personal opinions and facts which cannot be proven;
- ‘privileged’ information such as a state secret which it is in the public interest to keep secret or a private communication between a lawyer and their client;
- more prejudicial to one of the parties than of constructive value to the court; or
- evidence that it would be contrary to public policy to allow because it is for example harmful to the justice system such as a confession that was forced by police acting improperly.
- Either party can object to evidence that it argues should not be admitted for one of these reasons.
- An objection may be contentious (arguable). It may require submissions from both sides before the judge will decide whether the evidence will be excluded or allowed.
- In such cases the jury may be excused from the court for a refreshment break while the argument is heard by the judge alone.
- If the jury remains in the courtroom and hears the argument they may fail to exclude everything they hear even though it ultimately is ruled inadmissible by the judge.
- These in-trial mini-hearings over evidential issues are called ‘voir dire’ hearings. They can occur quite frequently during the course of a trial.
- An objection is made is by the objecting lawyer or party standing up, stating that they object to the question then stating why it is that they object to the question. They will usually cite one of the reasons listed earlier.
- Objections to improper questions should be made as soon as your lawyer realises that the question is improper and contrary to the rules of evidence.
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