민사소송에 있어서의 전자문서의 증거성

Abstract

The current Civil Procedure Code Article 374, which was newly established at the time when the Civil Procedure Code was completely revised in 2002, prescribed that “as other kind of evidence, the investigation of evidence rather than the documents like things made to contain “drawings, photos, recording tapes, video tapes, magnetic disc for computer, and other information shall be determined by the Supreme Court Rules in accordance with the Rules of Section 3 or Section 5.” This is understood that given the potential appearance of new media, it opens possibilities to use appropriate method of investigation including documentary evidence, verification, and valuation. Rules of Civil Procedure Article 120 prescribes that if message information or drawings and photos are evidential matter, its output documents should be submitted and Article 121 prescribes that the investigation of evidence on the media to be reproduced by recording voice or video relies on verification. Electronic Litigation Act Article 13 specifically specifies the methods of investigating evidence that the electronic document itself is the method of evidence rather than the media containing the electronic document. Rules of Civil Procedure Article 32 and Article 33 implements Electronic Litigation Act Art. 13, but does not prescribe which the evidence investigation of electronic document belongs to, either documentary evidence or verification, expressly. This seems to focus on prescribing the evidence investigation method of electronic documents to avoid practical confusions as precisely as possible. And the legal characteristics can be interpreted as having the purpose to open many interpretive possibilities considering the review of the future technological development or the whole Civil Procedure Code. In paper document procedure, as the original copy of the electronic document printed from a device cannot be filed as records, so it can be seen as verification. But, in electronic document procedure, as the electronic document is directly seen from a computer monitor and filed into the storage folder of recordings in an electronic way as the method of evidence like the other documents, this method of evidence should be seen as documentary evidence. And if voice information or video information can be filed as it is, the evidence investigation procedure of electronic document should comply with the submission of original copy for investigating evidence as the system for documentary evidence, rules of procedure and of evidence including Order to Present/Submit Documents, for this type of evidence investigation is not different from the document information. But, for special circumstances like when there are too much amount of electronic documents or when it’s difficult to decode, the evidence investigation by verification or valuation is possible by an authorized person’s or a party’s application.