The Law Commission's Character Convictions

Abstract

This article assesses the proposals made by the Law Commission for England and Wales in its recent report on bad character evidence. Rather than looking at the technical details of the Commission's proposed admissibility scheme, it concentrates on the foundational principles behind it. The Commission does not propose wholescale reform of this area of the law. It recommends retaining the general rule that evidence of a defendant's bad character is prima facie inadmissible. It also proposes an exception to this general rule, allowing bad character evidence to be used to attack a defendant's credibility if the defendant runs his defence in a particular way. This, too, mirrors the current law, though the Commission's exception would be more tightly drawn than the present rule. Another exception to the general rule of exclusion relates to similar fact evidence. Here, the Commission recommends replacing the current rule with a more carefully structured one. It is suggested that the Commission offers no cogent justification for any of these proposals.