Meeting the needs of military justice: The advantages and disadvantages of codified rules of evidence. An examination of the Military Rules of Evidence.

摘要

The Military Rules of Evidence, in force since 1959, are a codified form of rules of criminal evidence which are unique to Canadian military law. Based largely on the common law rules of evidence applied in civilian criminal trials, the military Rules of Evidence are applied only at courts martial. The efficacy of the Rules is a somewhat controversial topic among military lawyers, and the central focus of this thesis is to question whether the needs of military justice are best satisfied through the use of the Military Rules of Evidence, or whether those needs could be better met by reliance on the common law rules of criminal evidence.;A subsidiary question that arises as a result of the comparative estimation of the Military Rules of Evidence with their common law counterparts is whether or not codified rules of evidence are advantageous for use in criminal trials. The discussion surrounding this question focuses on the relative strengths and weaknesses of both codified and common law rules of evidence.;In the result, after examining the archival records to determine the intentions of the drafters of the Military Rules of Evidence, and looking at cases which have applied and interpreted the Rules over the course of their 35 years of use. the answers to these two questions are equivocal. However, having regard to the peculiarities of military law and the special needs of military justice, it is recommended that the Military Rules of Evidence be retained for use at courts martial, and that suitable amendments of the Rules be undertaken to ensure they meet the current needs of military justice.