Court Trials & Appeal Courts
8. Re-Examination of Witness
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 18 Jul 2015
- After cross-examination has ended the lawyer who called that witness may re-examine them by asking questions designed to clarify things the witness said during cross-examination.
- The purpose of re-examination is to explain or qualify damaging admissions made by the witness while they were being cross-examined. It must be confined to explaining matters that were raised during cross-examination. It cannot introduce new material as there will be no further opportunity for cross-examination of that witness and the other side must be given the opportunity to test all evidence.
- If damage inflicted by cross-examination is not explained or at least qualified to some extent the damage remains and the case of the party bringing the witness is weakened accordingly.
- Re-examining a witness may be able to:
- repair any distortions, ambiguity or incomplete accounts that cross-examination revealed in their evidence;
- clarify the facts that are in issue and bring them back to the fore; and
- restore the credibility of the witness and the evidence they gave during their examination-in-chief.
- Factors that should be taken into account when considering whether or not to re-examine your witness include:
- did cross-examination damage your case on the facts or did it damage the credibility of your witness? If not re-examination is not necessary;
- whether there are there ambiguities (unclear statements) that need to be explained; and
- if your case has been damaged can you lessen it even slightly by having your witness expand, explain or qualify the damaging things they said during cross-examination? This can be risky.
- Because the lawyer or party is re-examining their own witness they are not allowed to ask leading questions for reasons cited in the examination-in chief section of this guide. All of the rules of examinations-in-chief apply to re-examinations.
View more Information on Special Types of Practice