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Confronting Religion: Veiled Witnesses, the Right to a Fair Trial and the Supreme Court of C anada's Judgment in R v N . S .
Author(s) -
Laird Karl
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the modern law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-2230
pISSN - 0026-7961
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2230.12059
Subject(s) - witness , conviction , supreme court , law , theology , value (mathematics) , psychology , philosophy , social psychology , political science , computer science , machine learning
The S upreme C ourt of C anada's decision in R v N . S . is significant because the majority seems to endorse an understanding of confrontation that assumes a defendant's right to a fair trial is imperilled by a witness who seeks to give evidence while wearing the niqab. The case is of interest because it permits reflection upon the interrelationship between the right to a fair trial and the right to confront witnesses enshrined in Article 6 of the E uropean C onvention on H uman R ights. Given that the E uropean C ourt of H uman R ights conceptualises confrontation in epistemic terms, it is argued that it would be unlikely to find that a conviction based upon evidence from a niqab‐wearing witness would infringe the right to a fair trial. This note examines the value of demeanour evidence and whether the majority in R v N . S . was correct that the abrogation of the ability to assess demeanour evidence necessarily undermines trial fairness.