Cases - Ajami v Comptroller of Customs

Record details

Name

Ajami v Comptroller of Customs

Date

[1954]

Citation

UKPC 35

Keywords

Expert witness

Summary

The Privy Council held that a branch bank manager, engaged in banking business in Nigeria for 24 years, had to, and did, maintain a current knowledge of banknotes in use in West Africa. He was therefore regarded as an expert giving expert evidence. The accusers maintained that this was a matter that no non-lawyer could be regarded as expert in, but the court rejected this:

'... not only the general nature, but also the precise character of the question upon which expert evidence is required, have to be taken into account when deciding whether the qualifications of a person entitle him to be regarded as a competent expert. So the practical knowledge of a person who is not a lawyer may be sufficient in certain cases to qualify him as a competent expert on a question of foreign law'.