Maart 2013: jaargang 10, nommer 1 - LitNet

LitNet Akademies Jaargang 10 (1), Maart 2013
offered, or as to the true limits of the governing propositions of substantive law,
pleading, or procedure, which in every case must fix the character of what is put
forward as being relevant or the reverse; but also, where a declaration as to the
admissibility of evidence is clearly not of this sort, yet it is very often merely a
single specimen, out of myriads that might be offered, of probative matter not
excluded by the law of evidence. 30
Vierdens wys Thayer daarop dat daar ’n onderskeid getref moet word tussen dokumente wat
’n kontrak daarstel en dokumente wat bloot bewys is van ’n eksterne feit, losstaande en
onafhanklik daarvan. 31 Die dokument is in so geval slegs skriftelike bewys van ’n transaksie
of ooreenkoms wat reeds geldig en volledig daarsonder is. 32
Talle skrywers is verder, heeltemal tereg, van mening dat die ekstrinsieke-getuienis-reël
getuienis ontoelaatbaar maak aangesien sodanige getuienis weens die uitwerking van ’n reël
van die materiële reg irrelevant is. Volgens Schmidt en Rademeyer is dit ’n reël dat wanneer
’n regshandeling eenmaal in ’n skriftelike stuk beliggaam is, slegs die inhoud van die stuk
relevant is ten einde te bepaal wat die terme bepalings van die regshandeling is. 33
Zeffertt en Paizes deel hierdie sentiment waar hulle verklaar: “Material is excluded by the
rule, not because it is inherently untrustworthy or undesirable, but because the substantive
law renders it legally ineffective, thus forbidding its proof.” 34 Hulle vervolg:
If the document is conclusive as to the terms of the transaction, evidence of
different or additional terms will be excluded because the rule of substantive law
makes such evidence irrelevant. Similarly, if rules of construction require the
meaning of a document to be decided without reference to certain extrinsic facts,
evidence of those facts will also be irrelevant. 35
Volgens hierdie skrywers het die howe, in plaas daarvan om bloot te beslis dat ekstrinsieke
getuienis irrelevant is, van die standpunt uitgegaan dat ekstrinsieke getuienis ontoelaatbaar is.
Die resultaat was dat die materiële reg as ’n bewysregtelike reël vermom is. 36
Dit is egter interessant om te let op die beslissings van die Suid-Afrikaanse howe na
die Cassiem-uitspraak 37 met betrekking tot die klassifisering van die ekstrinsieke-getuienisreël.
In Avis v Verseput 38 is appèlregter Centlivres van mening dat die reël deel van die
bewysreg uitmaak. Hy verklaar: “In this case the question of the admissibility of the evidence
must be determined by the law in force in the Supreme Court of Judicature in
England.” 39 In Union Government v Vianini Ferro-Concrete Pipes (Pty) Ltd 40 het appèlregter
Watermeyer hom daarvan weerhou om standpunt in te neem, en obiter opgemerk:
This rule, or perhaps it would be more correct to say these rules, have always, so
far as I am aware, been regarded in South African Courts as rules of evidence; but
several writers upon the law of evidence such asWigmore and others, quoted
by Phipson in Chapter 45 of his book, hold the view that they are not strictly rules
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