ADMISSIBILITY OF CERTAIN RECORDS AS EVIDENCE OF FACTS STATED (Hansard, 23 July 1968)

§ The Solicitor-General
I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 35, 446 leave out from 'person' to 'in' in line 36 and insert 'acting'.
I suggest that it would be convenient to discuss the following Amendment, at the same time, Amendment No. 2.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher)
If there is no objection, so be it.

§ The Solicitor-General
This series of Amendments extends the meaning to be attached under subsection (3) to a person acting under a duty so as to make that expression include a person acting in the course of any trade, business or profession, instead of … a person performing a duty falling to be performed by him in the course of any trade …". In paragraph 16 of its Report on hearsay evidence, the Law Reform Committee discussed the corresponding provision of the Evidence Act, 1938, which provides for the admissibility of statements contained in written records. One of the conditions for admissibility was that the statement must have been recorded in the performance of a duty to record relevant information. Of this requirement the Law Reform Committee said: The requirement that the statement must have been made in the performance of a duty to record information is, we think, a valid one. The concept of duty is, in our view, however, not appropriate to the case of the one-man business man who keeps his own records. This series of Amendments is designed to meet that instance. The owner of a one-man business is under no duty to himself, although he would find it, in practice, essential, to keep formal business records. It would be anomalous if entries in his ledgers made by him were not admissible whereas entries made in similar ledgers made by another businessman's clerk were admissible, simply because he was an employee. Convenience and logic both seem to invite the view that entries made in the course of business by the proprietor should be treated on a par with similar entries made by an employee.