ABSTRACT
The section made the defendant a competent witness for the defence in all criminal cases. But to have put the defendant in the same position as any other witness would have created problems. We have already noted the general rule that a witness may be cross-examined about his bad character, and in particular about any previous convictions, with a view to shaking his credibility. A defendant with previous convictions would have been deterred from testifying if this rule had been applied to him. There is another rule for the protection of witnesses, which allows them to claim a ‘privilege against self-incrimination’ and refuse to answer any questions tending to show that they have committed a criminal offence. If a defendant in the witness box had been allowed to take advantage of this privilege, the prosecution’s task of cross-examination would have been made impossible.
