The Human Rights Act and the Law of Criminal Evidence: Ten Years On

This article reviews the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 (UK) on the development of the law of criminal evidence in England and Wales. The article argues that the English courts have adopted a pluralist approach to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in the course of developing a distinctive conception of fair trial rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. That conception is founded on a principle of proportionality. The principle can take account of both epistemic and non-epistemic dimensions of fair trial rights, but controversy exists as to when non-epistemic considerations should result in a finding that a restriction on a fair trial right is disproportionate. The article concludes with a sketch of a possible solution consistent with the theory that holds the function of the law of the evidence to be the securing of legitimate verdicts in criminal trials.