The Burden Of Proof In R V Hunt

Introduction

Sir William Blackstone had once stated that “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”. The statement clearly shows the weight of the presumption of innocence as to the working of the criminal justice system. Hence, a series of international human rights treaties were introduced to give effect to this.

This is in support of the idea - he who asserts must prove, which means, the prosecution bears the burden of proof. The burden of proof is an obligation on one party to persuade the jury or a judge of an alleged claim. The defendant need not prove his own innocence; it is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty and the standard of proof here is beyond reasonable

The question raised here was, did more than 0.2% of morphine constituted an essential element of the offence or did less than 0.2% resulted to an exception. The defendant argued that there was no case because the prosecution failed to prove that the mixture contain excessive amount of morphine. The trial judge rejected the argument and held that the defendant shoulders the burden of proof. On appeal, the Court of Appeal affirms the decision of the trial judge. When the case reached the House of Lords, it was argued that Edwards was decided wrongly. However, Lord Griffiths stated that it was correctly decided based on the linguistic construction of the provision in Edwards and that Lawton’s formula was a ‘helpful approach’. Hunt is one of those rare cases, which fell out from Lawton’s formulation in

Lord Steyn in Lambert stated that the legal burden should be read down when the maximum penalty involves imprisonment because it would be unfair to place such harsh penalty on defendants who were unable to prove innocence simply because the standard is too high. In Johnstone too, Lord Nicholls pointed out that a strong justification for reverse burden would be required when the offence involves heavy penalty. Hence, the courts in Sheldrake upheld a reverse burden because the maximum penalty was only six months.

The case of Attorney- General’s Reference (No.4) refused to uphold a reverse burden because it involves a maximum penalty of 10 years. However, following Johnstone, where the courts allowed a reverse burden for an offence, which involves a maximum penalty of 10 years, there seems to be uncertainty whether this can still be used as a guideline. Furthermore, penalty can be in the form of custodial or pecuniary, which caused further