emerges that the Applicant’s right to defend himself was communicated to
him, a right he duly exercised.
86. The Court, therefore, considers that the Applicant does not provide any
proof that the manner in which the proceedings before the domestic courts
were conducted led to any serious miscarriage of justice, or led to a violation
of the Applicant’s right to be heard.
87. In view of this, the Court finds that the Respondent State did not violate the
Applicant’s right to be heard, protected under Article 7(1) of the Charter.
iii. Allegation relating to inadmissible evidence
88. The Applicant alleges that the trial court and the appellate court were wrong
to convict the Applicant based on the postmortem report, that is exhibit (P1),
and the sketch map, that is exhibit (P2), as they were not shown to the
Applicant and/or read out to him.
89. The Applicant submits that the mere fact that counsel for the accused was
given an opportunity to cross-examine those documents does not meet the
requirement duly established by the Respondent State’s highest court which
ruled on several occasions that failure to read out, and explain to the
accused the contents of any documents before admission of that document
is fatal. He contends that those documents ought to have been expunged
from the record.
90. The Applicant refers to Emmanuel Kondrad Yosipati v. The Republic,
Criminal Appeal No 296 of 2017, where the Court of Appeal stated:
It is trite principle that where in a trial held with the aid of assessors, a
contested statement of an accused person is admitted in evidence, the same
must be read over in court so as to enable the accused person and the
assessor to understand its contents.
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