The Witness Who is Unable to Reject the Suggestions Put to Her
Counsel : “Is it possible that X occurred?” Witness : “Maybe.” Here, the Witness has not accepted the premise or upshot of the question; as a result, the answer of the witness provides no evidence as to whether or not X occurred . Questions are not evidence. Answers are evidence. Questions can only become evidence where the witness adopts the proposition put to them in the question as true. As the Supreme Court of Canada recognized in R. v. Simpson , a proposition put to a witness during cross-examination does not constitute evidence of the proposition, unless the witness adopts it as true and that a witness’s “inability to reject the suggestions put to him does not shed any light on whether those suggestions are true or not. Without more, all that his answers convey is that he was not personally aware” of the events in question. “To rel...