Inadmissibility of a Document Tendered and Rejected: Any Exception? A Working Paper on the Exceptions to the Law Guiding the Admissibility of Documentary Evidence in Nigeria

The importance of documentary evidence in a legal proceeding cannot be over-emphasized. They serve as the best form of evidence in the proof of a party’s claim before the court. A document will be admissible in evidence only if it is admissible in law and is relevant to the facts in issue. The general position of the law is that a document that fails the test of admissibility becomes inadmissible in evidence and will not be reckoned with in determining any issue for consideration before the court. However, a critical evaluation of case-laws in Nigeria revealed that in some circumstances, exceptions abound to this general position under the law of evidence. Notably, the circumstances before the courts in Akinduro v Alaya and Braimoh Akinola vs. Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin & ors presented workable exceptions to this general position. The paper found that the effects of these exceptions are that documents rendered inadmissible in a particular suit do not become utterly useless and same may still be admissible in prove of a separate purpose in the proceedings. Hence, this paper argued against the “absoluteness” of the general position under the law of evidence that a document rendered inadmissible is totally inadmissible in the same proceeding, the paper presented exceptions to the absoluteness of this general principle of law, and concluded that there is in existence circumstantial exceptions to this general principle.