Using Electronic Data Interchange Techniques and the Evidential Problems

What is it about?

The object of this article is to assess critically the practical evidential difficulties in rendering admissible in civil and criminal proceedings 'paperless' transactions such as Data Intelligence for Shipping (DISH) and Shipnet between shippers,freight forwarders and shipping lines as documentary evidence. Since paperless transactions such as DISH and Shipnet depend on a network of hearsay evidence and the danger of manufactured evidence , multiplicity of issues and the stringent rules of admissible hearsay evidence may render the evidence of paperless transactions inadmissible,the two suggestions for reform proffered are : (i) remove documentary evidence from the marcescent hearsay rule in criminal proceedings and render it admissible subject to the discretion similar to that vested in judges by section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984,and (ii) enact a revamped law of evidence shorn of its feudal anachronisms in civil proceedings.

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