If you are a defendant in a court case and you choose not to tell the court what happened, you cannot use a statement you made earlier as evidence. This means you cannot use something you said or wrote before as proof of what you are saying. This rule does not change the rule about statements you made before that are consistent with what you are saying now, which is explained in the previous consistent statement rule.
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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM393595.
20: Admissibility in civil proceedings of hearsay statements in documents related to applications, discovery, or interrogatories, or
"Using hearsay in documents for a civil court case if the court rules allow it"
22: Notice of hearsay in criminal proceedings, or
"Telling others you want to use hearsay evidence in a criminal trial"
If a defendant in a criminal proceeding does not give evidence, the defendant may not offer his or her own hearsay statement in evidence in the proceeding.
To avoid any doubt, this section does not limit the previous consistent statement rule.
