Makin v Attorney General for New South Wales[1] is a significant 1893 decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which gave rise to the modern common law rule of similar fact evidence.

[3] At the close of arguments on 22 July 1893 the Privy Council announced that its advice was that the appeal should be dismissed,[8] and its reasons were published on 12 December 1893.

On the other hand, the mere fact that the evidence adduced tends to show the commission of other crimes does not render it inadmissible if it be relevant to an issue before the jury, and it may be so relevant if it bears upon the question whether the acts alleged to constitute the crime charged in the indictment were designed or accidental, or to rebut a defence which would otherwise be open to the accused.

The statement of these general principles is easy, but it is obvious that it may often be very difficult to draw the line and to decide whether a particular piece of evidence is on the one side or the other.

[10] The court also delivered an opinion that colonial legislatures did not have the power to pass laws with extraterritorial effect:[11] The question was already uncertain prior to this, and as an obiter dictum the opinion was not binding; nevertheless it had a chilling effect on Dominion legislatures' willingness to pass extraterritorial laws until the Statute of Westminster 1931 explicitly stated that they had the power to do so.