ABSTRACT
The municipal law of Australia is the common law derived from and formulated to a significant extent by the British common law system. The modern law of evidence in Australia was created essentially by 19th and 20th century British case law and moulded by Australian case law. A simple statement of the current position in Australia may be that provided there is specialised knowledge held by a witness and that knowledge is relevant to the proceedings then the witness’s opinions will be admissible provided they are substantially referrable to that knowledge. Both the statutory provisions and the common law insofar as it might apply depends in the facility for judicial notice upon “common knowledge”. The guidelines infer a capacity in an expert witness to determine relevance both of the witness’s own special knowledge and the evidence to be adduced by some form of pre-judgment made by the witness.
