Right To Remain Silent
A defendant in a criminal trial may choose whether or not to give evidence in the proceedings. Further, there is no general duty to assist the police with their inquiries.
Although certain financial and regulatory investigatory bodies have the power to require a person to answer questions and impose a penalty if a person refuses, if a person gives evidence in such proceedings, the prosecution cannot adduce such evidence in a criminal trial.
Read more about this topic: Right To Silence In England And Wales
Famous quotes containing the words right to, remain and/or silent:
“What does it matter whether I am shown to be right! I am right too much!—And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.”
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)
“But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the way-side as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says,—”Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)