JUDGMENT
BENIN JSC
Ordinarily, an application for leave to adduce fresh evidence on appeal, as in the instant, should pose no problem to the court to determine, for the criteria governing it have clearly been settled in a long line of cases decided at the highest level and by legislation, namely Supreme Court Rules, C.I.16, rule 76(1)(2). These criteria are:
i. The evidence was not available to the applicant at the trial;
ii. The evidence could not have been obtained by the applicant upon reasonable diligence for use at the trial;
iii. Had the evidence been adduced at the trial it would have had an important influence on the result of the case, although it need not be decisive;
iv. Such as is presumably to be believed, in other words evidence of a sort which is inherently not improbable.
The authors of Halsbury’s Laws of England, 5th edn. vol. 12, para. 1676 add a timely reminder that ‘these criteria need to be applied as guidelines rather than rules and subject to the overriding objective o…