70109 Study Guide - Final Guide: Adverse Inference, Indictable Offence
Document Summary
The right to silence: no legislative source that governs the right to silence and no instrument in the constitution. Silence at trial: different law applies to each of these. But there are some exceptions to this general principle of a right to silence: pre-trial silence. 89a evidence of silence in criminal proceedings for serious indictable. If an accused person knows something that can be helpful in their defence, this rule encourages them to divulge that information ad early as possible. The lateness can be taken as not being as string as it could have been had it been raised as early as possi(cid:271)le i(cid:374) the pro(cid:272)edure (cid:858: silence at trial: The trial judge and prosecutor cannot make any adverse comment which suggests or i(cid:373)plies the a(cid:272)(cid:272)used(cid:859)s sile(cid:374)(cid:272)e is (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause they are guilty. There might be some circumstances in which weissenseiner will still apply. But they have to be very extreme circumstances.
