J.L. c. R., 2011 QCCA 1848 (CanLII)
[27] Équité du contre-interrogatoire comme élément de l'équité du procès, arrêt Browne v. Dunn. L'argument que propose ici l'appelant ne convainc pas et la lecture des notes sténographiques du procès ne montre aucunement le caractère inéquitable du contre-interrogatoire de l'appelant aux mains de l'avocate du ministère public, en particulier quant aux circonstances des événements du mois d'octobre.
[28] Comme l'écrit Lord Herschell dans Browne v. Dunn, p. 70-71 :
[…] My Lords, I have always understood that if you intend to impeach a witness your are bound, whilst he is in the box, to give him an opportunity of making any explanation which is open to him; and, as it seems to me, that is not only a rule of professional practice in the conduct of a case, but is essential to fair play and fair dealing with witnesses. Sometimes reflections have been made upon excessive cross-examination of witnesses, and it has been complained of as undue; but it seems to me that a cross-examination of a witness which errs in the direction of excess may be far more fair to him than to leave him without cross-examination, and afterwards to suggest that he is not a witness of truth, I mean upon a point on which it is not otherwise perfectly clear that he has had full notice beforehand that there is an intention to impeach the credibility of the story which he is telling. Of course I do not deny for a moment that there are cases in which that notice has been so distinctly and unmistakenly given, and the point upon which he is impeached, and is to be impeached, is so manifest, that it is not necessary to waste time in putting questions to him upon it. All I am saying is that it will not do to impeach the credibility of a witness upon a matter on which he has not had any opportunity of giving an explanation by reason of there having been no suggestion whatever in the course of the case that his story is not accepted.
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