Computer says No: South Australian Evidence Law and New Technology

In efforts to modernise laws mentioning a “telegram" and/or the "telegraph”, to update laws that do not contemplate the Internet adequately, law reform advocates in South Australia are pushing to have the evidence laws of that state reviewed to take into account of the advances brought by computer and communications technology.

The South Australian Law Reform Institute Issues Paper No 1 "Computer says no: Modernisation of South Australian evidence law to deal with new technologies (dated May 2012) looks into this and states:

"The most obvious source for any modernisation of local South Australian evidence law to reflect changes in information and communication technologies is therefore the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth), not only because that Act governs many proceedings heard in South Australia, but also because most other Australian jurisdictions have now chosen to enact identical provisions to those in the Commonwealth Act to govern all proceedings in their courts."

The institute takes the view in the paper that by retaining its own local evidence laws South Australia has also fallen out of date in terms of the matters referred to in those laws and how those laws cope with new forms of technology and how those technologies impinge on the law especially with respect to evidence.

For those interested a good overview of this see The Register. A link to other paper is here.

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