Understanding Evidence Evaluation in Legal Proceedings

Free and Legal Evaluation of Evidence

Free and legal evaluation is the mental activity by which the Judge decides which fact is true or false. The Judge shall interpret and then evaluate.

• Interpretation: To comprehend the meaning of evidentiary results. You can’t assess anything if you don’t understand the meaning of an evidentiary result; you need to understand in order to evaluate.
• Evaluation: Assuming the Judge has understood the objective meaning, to which rules should the Judge adhere, to decide if a fact is true or false?

The general rule is the free evaluation of the evidence; the Judge is free to choose the rule of logic.

Free evaluation is a system in which the Judge is left to choose among the rules of human criteria and reason. The use of the term "free" doesn’t mean arbitrary. It must comply with the rules of logic and reason, sound criticism, or the rules of human criteria.

Legal evaluation applies to public documents, whenever their authenticity has not been challenged, or should have been challenged; secondly, not public but official documents whose authenticity has not been contested, whenever another evidentiary result is not contradicting the document; finally, private documents whenever their authenticity and their probative value have not been challenged and that private document is not a recording or a technical device containing data.

Distinction Between Public, Private, and Official Documents

Legal evaluation of documents:

• Public documents: These apply whenever their authenticity has not been challenged or should have been and has been confronted and verified against the protocol. They are authenticated and attested by someone who has the legal power of certification, to give public faith.

  Documents that have been authenticated and have the power to give public faith. A Notary, Court Clerk, or Council of Administration of Justice have the power to do so.

• Official documents: These apply when their authenticity has not been challenged or should have been and has been confronted and verified against the protocol, whenever there is no evidentiary result that amounts to any different conclusion. They are issued by a public servant, but this public servant doesn’t enjoy the legal power of certification.

  These have been issued by a public servant that doesn’t have the power of certification.

• Private documents: These apply whenever their authenticity and probative value haven’t been challenged and they are not a recording or any technical device containing data. Any other document.

  Any other document from private people.

Art. 319.1 (public document): Anything that the public servant has observed or included in the document will be regarded as true.

Art. 319.2 (official document)

Art. 326 (private document): What is to be deemed true is what the parties say, what is said in the document.

Standard of Proof for the Judge

This refers to the degree of conviction that the Judge shall come to. Once the evidentiary result has happened, the degree of conviction that the Judge shall come to in order to establish the truth or falseness of a fact. If this degree of conviction isn’t reached, then the fact is uncertain and the rules of burden of proof will apply.