Electronic Evidence Base Of Research

The emergence of digital technology initiated the involvement of electronicevidence in litigation procedures;and the rapid development of digital technologyensures the more and more important role of electronic evidence in litigation. However,it is very difficult to fully understand the features of electronic evidence since it isalways in connection with the rapidly developed high technology;and the traditionaltheories therefore cannot directly apply to electronic evidence. As a result, academiccontroversy has been existed for a long time with respect to the definition, credibility,adscription and probative force of electronic evidence. Due to the foregoing, the author,by writing this dissertation, is trying to offer his contribution to the research ofelectronic evidence.In terms of research methodology, this dissertation adopts the historic approach byanalyzing similarities and differences with audiovisual evidence and electronic evidence;and also adopts comparison approach by making compassion between benefiting fromthe advanced legislation of various foreign countries and applying in accordance withthe reality of our country. In terms of the substances, this dissertation discusses thebasic issues of electronic evidence in five chapters which focuses on the features ofelectronic evidence and the differences and similarities between electronic evidence andtraditional evidence, and which also clarifies the misunderstanding of electronicevidence under traditional evidence theories. These researches are expected to be thesolid basis for legislation of electronic evidence.Chapter I of the dissertation is the general introduction of electronic evidence.Section 1 discusses the approaches for defining electronic evidence and offers a narrowdefinition for electronic evidence at the end of this section. As the most key part of thedissertation, Section 2 of this chapter summaries the characteristics of electronicevidence, the most important of which is the connection with high technology. Thissection also leads the discussion throughout this dissertation. Section 3 generallydiscusses the classification of electronic evidence.Chapter II contains three sections, which discuss the evidential effect, i.e.,credibility of electronic evidence. The first two sections discuss its credibility fromobjective and connection perspectives. The third section of this chapter demonstrates thelegitimacy of electronic evidence by reviewing the legal form, legal procedure andspecified legal rules. And the "specified legal rules" means the "hearsay evidence rule"and "best evidence rule" under the Anglo-American law system.The focus of Chapter III is the adscription of electronic evidence. The first sectionof this chapter introduces various current theories on the adscription of electronicevidence, together with the author's analysis and understanding. By analyzing therelationship between documented evidence and audiovisual evidence, Section 2 furtherreviews the current standards for classification of evidence. The last section of thischapter concludes that electronic evidence is the kind of evidence of multiattribute.Chapter IV reviews the probative force of electronic evidence in two sections.Section 1 focuses on clarifying the misunderstanding for the probative force ofelectronic evidence under traditional evidence theories;and Section 2 sets up thedetailed standards for evaluation of the probative force of electronic evidence.Chapter V explains the author's opinions on how to build up the legislation frameof electronic evidence in China. The first section summaries the current source of law inChina for electronic evidence, followed by the section which summaries the deficienciesof the current legislation on electronic evidence. In accordance with the discussion inthe first two sections, the author analyzes the legislative approach which shall beapplied in the legislation of electronic evidence in China.Based on the foregoing discussion, the author concludes that electronic evidence isa type of newly developed and multiattribute evidence that is always in connection withhigh technology. As long as it is properly regulated, electronic evidence is of the samelevel of credibility and probative force as traditional evidence. An independentlegislation frame shall be built up to regulate the application of electronic evidence inChina.