Author
Prof Ho Hock Lai
Organisation/Institution
National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law
Country
SINGAPORE
Panel
Criminal Law
Title
What is “Proof beyond Reasonable Doubt”? A Comparative Exploration
Abstract
No one should be convicted and punished unless the person is proved guilty. It is difficult to find a right that is more widely accepted than this. In most legal systems, proof of guilt requires the production of evidence that meets a ‘standard of proof’, specifically, the evidence must satisfy the court ‘beyond (a) reasonable doubt’ that the accused is guilty as charged. The Singapore Court of Appeal has noted that this standard is ‘not susceptible to easy definition. Many have despaired of attempting to articulate its intricacies’ (PP v GCK [2020] 1 SLR 486 at [127]). According to academic critics, the test of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ is ‘obscure, incoherent, and muddled’. This paper tries to make sense of ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’. How should the standard be conceived? What does it require of the judge or the fact-finder? The approaches taken in various common law legal systems, with an emphasis on Singapore law, will be examined and compared.
Biography
Ho Hock Lai is Coomaraswamy Professor of the Law of Evidence at NUS. He obtained his first law degree from the National University of Singapore (LLB) in 1989, his postgraduate degree, the BCL, from Oxford University in 1993, and his doctorate from Cambridge University in 2003. He was called to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 1990. His research interests lie mainly in the law and theory of evidence and proof, and the administration of criminal justice.
