The Post Office scandal has been widely described as the UK’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice. During the period between 1999 and 2015 over 900 people were convicted of theft and false accounting offences. These convictions were based on data from the faulty Horizon IT system. Whilst the statutory Post Office inquiry continues to examine the wide-ranging failings that led to these convictions, one area that deserves consideration is how the repeal of section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Evidence from Computer Records) enabled these convictions to be possible and whether the section should be reinstated. This paper argues that a reinstatement of the dictum that ‘the computer is always wrong,’ unless proved otherwise, is not without its problems and will not resolve the issues that have come to the fore following the Post Office cases.
This article explores the evolution and status of the Vietnamese legal framework on electronic evidence, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses from both theoretical and practical perspectives.
Index and tables Subject index Table of authors Table of cases Transcripts Judgments Rulings Orders Translations Case notes Table of electronic signature law legislation Table of statutes translated Table of books
In this interlocutory judgment, this court, at the request of the parties, ordered, before rendering judgment, the appointment of an expert to examine the Tesla S Pl00 DL vehicle, which had been purchased on [ ] 2018, by (the first appellant) through leasing from (the second appellant) from TESLA BELGIUM BV (the respondent). Belgium; hidden defects Tesla S Pl00 DL vehicle; disclosure/discovery; expert investigation frustrated and hampered; lack of loyal cooperation with the expert report and the evidence
On 3rd May 2007, the long-time Manager of the England’s Lane Post Office in Hampstead, England , Mr. David Cameron, was found guilty in the Crown Court of ten counts of theft from six customer-complainants in the period July 2005 to February 20061. Mr. Cameron applied to the Court of Appeal for an extension of time to apply for leave to appeal against his conviction, in light of the issues now known with the Horizon system, which processed the transactions involved in Mr. Cameron’s prosecution (the original deadline for filing for appeal had long passed). The judgement was published on 31st March, 2022. The Court of Appeal declined Mr. Cameron's application to appeal his conviction and provided their reasons.
At first glance, UK legislation regulating automated vehicle (AV) claims appear to provide a straightforward mechanism via an insurer for any road user to make a claim for injury or damage caused by an AV whilst engaged in self-driving mode. However, this paper will demonstrate how in the event of the insurer denying a claim or the manufacturer/insurer alleging that the Claimant contributed to the accident, those seeking compensation will have no alternative but to take the expensive and time-consuming action of pursuing the matter through the courts. The UK has not (at the time of writing) amended its product liability legislation to include AI and software. Consequently, if there is a vehicle fault relating to the AI, Claimants must pursue the claim in court via a negligence claim. Relevant to this, the UK has also introduced legislation which creates a benchmark of safety for AVs which is that AVs should drive to the standard of a competent and careful human driver. An AV being involved in a collision while driving itself does not mean the AV has fallen below the safety standard. Therefore, if an AV operator or road user alleges that the AV’s performance fell below the required safety standard, to prove this, the Claimant would require access to vehicle data and expertise to interpret the data. Parties not in possession of the AV data necessary to prove a claim will have to seek access to data through the manufacturer or other AI designer/provider. Where this is not voluntarily forthcoming, production of this evidence must also be pursued through the Courts. While there are laws regarding compulsory incident recording data in AVs, the parameters are narrow, and this data may not reveal how an incident occurred. Where the claim alleges faulty AI, which is denied by an insurer, the existing legal presumptions about the reliability of computers, combined with the inexplicable nature of deep learning algorithms, presents an almighty challenge for both a Claimant to present a case and for the Court to understand the evidence before it. This paper uses a learning scenario to explore how courts may deal with AV accident litigations, the types of challenges which may arise and the impact this may have on AV users and other road users who make a claim following a collision where a vehicle was driving itself.
The administrative contract is one of the transactions that may be concluded electronically. For this reason, it is important that it is legally regulated. The electronic contract is created by special procedures via electronic certification bodies. This article considers the authentication of the electronic administrative contract in Jordan. It also examines the legal value of the contract before the Jordanian judiciary. Index words: Jordan; Electronic Transactions Law No 15 of 2015; Jordanian Evidence Law; electronic administrative contract; electronic journals; electronic signature; electronic certification
Brian Altman KC reviewed unreliable expert evidence on the Horizon software system. The Post Office denied, including to Parliament, that there was any evidence of miscarriages of justice revealed before the Court of Appeal in 2021. In his review, Brian Altman KC indicated the prosecutions was fundamentally sound; this paper looks at the quality of the judgments arrived at to come to that conclusion. Index words: Altman General review; Post Office Limited; Horizon IT system; unreliable evidence; Clarke Advice; Swift Review; Bates litigation; Hamilton appeals
This paper analyzes the increasing use of electronic title certificates in the land administration system. On 12 January 2021, the Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/Head of the National Land Agency issued Regulation No. 1 of 2021 on Electronic Certificate. This Regulation marks a turning point in the reformation of the system of land governance and security of tenure in Indonesia. By streamlining the land registration and dispute-resolution procedures, the use of the digital land title could increase the legal certainty of the Indonesian system of land tenure. It is possible that the digital certificate might transform the present method of a negative publication system with positive elements – the present mechanism for demonstrating ownership of land rights – into a positive publication system. Index words: Indonesia, electronic title certificate, land tenure, land registration system, systems theory, girik rights, garapan rights
This article analyses the judicial and legislative attitude in relation to electronically stored information presented as evidence in South Africa. The article also evaluates the adequacy of the regulation of admissibility and weight ascription to electronic information particularly the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECTA) 2002. The paper suggests that electronically stored information might not sufficiently be analysed and assessed using the rules of documentary evidence and recommends some amendments including clearer definitions of electronic information which are statements, electronic information that is contained in documents, and electronic information that are created wholly by electronic algorithms and software. Index words: South Africa; electronically stored information; admissibility; hearsay; Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002
The availability of large language models (LLM), a form of AI correspondence agent, on the Internet raises questions about their possible use in legal processes. For they seem often to introduce into their output arbitrary assertions which are untrue. This is ‘new’ behaviour (a Google search, for example, returns correct information on a semantically similar query). I give examples in which use of an LLM is both tempting and could subvert a legal process. Index words: large language model; LLM; artificial intelligence; AI; ChatGPT; law; legal processes; lying; r-lying
With the rise in cloud computing, law enforcement is increasingly in need of digital evidence stored across borders.This data is often controlled by US service providers, or physically located in a data center, outside of the jurisdiction.The current system for cross-border data requests, mutual legal assistance treaties (MLAT), is incapable of meeting the increasing demand for digital evidence, resulting in unworkable delays in accessing evidence for the investigation of serious crime.As a result, governments may turn to hacking, unilateral extraterritorial reach of production orders, and data localization, to access digital evidence more easily.These methods can lead to foreign policy tensions, a splintering and inefficient internet, and possible human rights' abuses.New reforms have emerged in the US and Europe to address deficiencies in the MLAT system but have yet to be implemented.This thesis will begin by considering the concerns of stakeholders involved -law enforcement, service providers, and data subjects -and the nature of data and technology of cloud computing.By engaging in a comparative analysis of areas of transnational law that involve similar conflicts of law and conducting a doctrinal analysis of well-accepted doctrines of sovereignty and jurisdiction under public international law, this thesis will formulate a theory of data sovereignty for law enforcement access to data across borders.This thesis will then utilize this theory of data sovereignty to critically assess emerging approaches to reform the MLAT system, including the US Cloud Act, the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention Additional Protocol, and the EU E-Evidence Proposal.Ultimately, the thesis will determine whether these principles of data sovereignty can be utilized to identify a harmonized approach to law enforcement access to cross-border data that simultaneously: (1) offers enhanced certainty to internet service providers by eliminating conflicts of laws; (2) respects individual privacy and other human rights; and (3) recognizes sometimes overlapping, yet legitimate, state interests in accessing and protecting data.
This paper addresses electronic evidence focusing on arbitration rules of the leading ADR providers. It also narrows the topic to an empirical assessment using six categories of electronic evidence in a sample of 92 arbitration proceedings. The paper aims to offer the concept of electronic evidence in international arbitration, its admissibility and relevance criteria, and reach conclusions from an empirical analysis of a large sample of arbitration proceedings gathered from the Centro Brasileiro de Mediação e Arbitragem (Brazilian Center for Mediation and Arbitration). We conclude that electronic evidence is regularly used in arbitration and is relevant to the arbitrators’ reasoning. We propose a revision on the 2016 Draft Convention on Electronic Evidence to include arbitration. Index words: alternative dispute resolution; arbitration; electronic evidence; admissibility; relevance; weight; empirical analysis
US government agencies employ a variety of techniques to manage risk, but often struggle with maintaining appropriate documentation about their risk-based decision-making processes. Many of the most important decisions made in government agencies are done through manual and paper-based processes that complicate the way decisions are documented, stored, and reported on, and inadvertently add risk to the enterprise. This is where workflow-driven digital signatures can add value, by helping to streamline and automate the way that decisions are documented for transparency and accountability purposes. Index words: United States of America; government agencies; risk; management; digital signatures
In 2000 section 69 of the Police and Criminal Act 1984 was repealed. The result was that a common law presumption came into effect that computer evidence was considered reliable unless there was evidence to the contrary. The Law Commission had recommended repeal of section 69 without any replacement. This article demonstrates that the Law Commission either misunderstood, or misrepresented, the sources it cited to justify its recommendation that computer evidence should be considered reliable. Two of the three main experts whose work was cited have confirmed that they were misrepresented. The recommendation and the resulting presumption therefore lack any factual or evidential basis. Index words: Law Commission; England & Wales; Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; section 69; repeal; presumption computers are reliable; misunderstood; misrepresented
