What is hearsay? Hearsay is literally something you heard and you say it out to other people. So, what is the significant of hearsay? Like how does it affect people and whether the court would accept hearsay as an evidence. Let us look into the scenario below where…
Mr. X is a farmer and lives in village X. One day, he is caught by the terrorist and the terrorist ask him to hold a grenade. The terrorist told him if you don’t hold this grenade, I will kill you… Out of fear, Mr. X holds the grenade and the police saw Mr. X holding a grenade and he is charge in court for holding fire arms.
In Court hearing, Mr. X says that the reason he holds the grenade is because if he didn’t hold the grenade, he will be killed.
Question: Is this hearsay?
A hearsay is defined as a statement repeated by someone else other than the maker in court, and the purpose of tendering is for the truth of the matter stated.
Based on the definition above, it is a statement made by the terrorist (maker) repeated by Mr. X (Not the maker of the statement) in court, however the purpose of tendering the statement is NOT for the truth of the matter stated but for the fact for the matter stated.
Mr. X is showing to the court that due to the fact that the statement is made he holds the grenade therefore is it not hearsay but it is original evidence.
Let us look into another scenario where…
Mr. X is a very old man. One day, without wearing specs he saw Mr. A kills Mr. Y and he told Mr. Z about it. Mr. Z called the police and Mr. A is arrested. After the incident, Mr. X left the country and nowhere to be found.
Mr. Z is summoned to be as the witness and he is to testify in court. Mr. Z told the court that he was told by Mr. X that Mr. A killed Mr. Y.
Question: Is this hearsay?
This is clearly hearsay and it is clearly not inadmissible in court where it is a statement made by others and repeated in court and the purpose of tendering is to show that Mr. A killed Mr. Y which is the truth of the matter stated.
The rationale of this is that the nature of hearsay could be quite dangerous where although the person who relied on hearsay could be unintentional to prejudice the accuse, the statement itself could contain risk of fabricated or taken out of context which again cause injustice to the accused or the one using to it.
Therefore, it is advisable not to simply listen to hearsay especially these days where almost everything can be fabricated.
